


Agarwaen

by Marchwriter



Series: Invictus [6]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Action/Adventure, Cultural Differences, Drama, Gen, Murder Mystery, Torture, battle buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-22
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:19:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 120,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11302782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marchwriter/pseuds/Marchwriter
Summary: When an old friend and a new enemy resurfaces, Aragorn uncovers more of the marchwarden's evasive past than is wise. Trying to protect him and his own secrets at all costs, Haldir will end up risking more than his safety for the young ranger.





	1. Hints of Shadow

Aragorn was in a tight spot.

That in itself was not surprising; the young man had a certain knack for cornering himself as his father constantly reminded him. But even he knew that six to one odds were not in his favor. Still he kept a tight grip on the hilt of his sword and a tighter grip on the reins of his two mounts which were tossing their heads anxiously, their eyes rolling as they scented fresh blood.

The blood came from their master.

One of his assailants had managed to sneak up on him and clipped a glancing blow across his skull, half-stunning him. But a hard head, quick thinking and quicker reflexes snatched precious moments for Aragorn to get back on his feet and draw his sword. The raiders were thieves by desperation rather than inclination and now faced with not-quite-so-easy a mark as they'd expected, they were hesitant to attack him. However, weapons were much in evidence and Aragorn had the prickling feeling that maybe he should have waited for Haldir as the elf had told him to.

He had been thrilled when the captain of Lothlórien decided to accompany him home to Rivendell on the pretext of reestablishing ties with the elves there; and their journey had gone relatively smoothly…until now. His fellow traveler had departed camp early that morning to scout the way ahead. Their provisions were low after two weeks' of hard travel and he knew of a small town where they might get supplies. But when he hadn't returned by midmorning, the restless ranger decided to go on and see if he could catch up. He hadn't gone three miles down the wooded path before being accosted by highwaymen.

"Hand them over now, boy, nice and easy. Then you can go on your way." The leader's eyes gleamed with covetous delight at the beauty of the elven steeds.

Aragorn clasped the reins still tighter and back-stepped again, his heels almost in the small stream where he had watered the horses. "No."

"Fine. Then we'll shoot you and take them anyway," the leader nodded and his men pulled arrows to their bows.

A thin-armed man with a shock of sandy hair, however, shook his head, giving Aragorn an almost-frightened look. His clothes were patched and frayed but they were undeniably those of a farmer. "Caleb, I don't want to ki-"

"Shut it, Saion. You'll do what I tell you," Caleb snapped, cuffing him sharply. "You want to survive out here, you follow my orders. Now stretch that string and put an arrow through him."

Aragorn decided not to waste a moment during this furious exchange and ducked behind the protective bulk of the horses' bodies.

Caleb went furiously white and swatted Saion's arrow out of his hands. "Don't hurt the horses, you idiot! Do you want to be stranded in this deathhole?"

Aragorn pressed his back against his steed's withers and cast a quick glance across the saddle.

Desperate, three of the men rushed around the horses, trying to flush him out from behind the coveted animals. But their weapons were crude and rusted with ill-care. The sword that had once belonged to Isildur snapped them as easily as dry twigs.

Standing at the edge of the chaos, Caleb suddenly screamed and fell, clutching his leg; a white arrow transfixed his calf. After dispatching one of the bandit, Aragorn's eyes raked the treetops and though he saw nothing, new heart edged his swing as he parried another blow. His opponent suddenly threw down his blade, his eyes stretched wide and horrified as he stared at the white arrow protruding from the throat of one of his comrades.

"No…not here," he whispered in a voice raspy with fear. Alerting his companions, he nearly tripped over his own sword backpedaling away from Aragorn and the menace in the trees. "The ghost! The ghost! Run!"

Aragorn didn't know what provoked that bizarre reaction but continued to hold his sword at the ready.

The others had noticed the white arrows too and fled as fast as they could into the brush, shoving one another aside so as not to be the one caught at the rear. Caleb, despite the arrow in his leg, scrambled up with a short, wailing cry and staggered off after his fleeing band sent on his way by a last arrow that thumped harmlessly into the earth.

As the noise of their frantic retreat faded, Aragorn swiped sweat from his brow and laughed for sheer relief.

"And what, pray, is so funny?" An irritated yet dryly amused voice inquired. "I cannot leave you alone for an hour before some catastrophe occurs can I?"

Aragorn waited until the elf touched the ground before folding his arms in what he hoped was a stern pose. "Well, if you hadn't been so late I wouldn't have had to go after you in the first place."

Haldir snorted at his display. "Why did Lord Elrond never teach you patience?"

"He tried, it didn't take." Aragorn grinned cheekily, earning him another supremely outraged glare.

The captain of Lothlórien snatched his reins away from the human and leapt lightly into the saddle. "You do realize had you killed my horse, I would have made you piggyback me all the way to Merdon."

"Thank goodness it lives!" Aragorn swung himself up before the elf could lean down and smack him. "How far are we now?"

"What did I just tell you about patience? You'd think you were human how you rush through life."

"I am human."

As the good-natured banter faded into the leaves, the clearing grew quiet. A spider wandered off a grass stalk and onto the white-feathered arrow still embedded in one of the bandits. Suddenly the wooden shaft twitched. Dislodged by the unexpected movement, the spider scuttled off the dead man's face and into the grass.

Long, pale fingers felt every inch of the arrow- from the trimmed swan-feather flights and cracked shaft to the mallorn-shaped tip, so sharp it drew blood with a touch. Rubbing the crimson stain between thumb and forefinger speculatively, the tall, grey-cloaked figure turned hidden eyes in the direction of the Road, the path the ranger and the elf had taken.

They were deep in Dunland territory, a wide, fertile area scattered with deeper woodlands and settled by herdsmen and farmers. An ill-timed snowstorm had blocked the shorter passage over the mountains and forced them to go roundabout through the Gap of Rohan. The hinterland was bare and grey in every direction but the trees still clung stubbornly to their leaves. As they continued north, it would get colder and likely snow. But Rivendell was still weeks away. It would take a while yet before Aragorn crossed the threshold of the Last Homely House. In the meanwhile, he tightened his belt and prayed that the miles would vanish swiftly under their horses' hooves.

Haldir grew increasingly quieter as they drew closer to human habitation but by the time they approached the town, Aragorn wouldn't have been able to hear him anyway. Drenched and shivering in a stiff rain that blew in with nightfall, they hunched over their saddle horns, conscious of only the wind roaring in their ears. The small, backwater town of Merdon nestled close to the mountain foothills bounded by formless pastureland on one side and thickly wooded slopes on the other, now hidden behind a dark and silver curtain.

In no better condition than their riders, the horses' heads drooped with fatigue and their manes matted flat against their broad, wet-darkened necks. But at the sight of warm light, they twisted their ears forward and lifted their hooves higher out of the squelching mud.

The road was rutted and gleaming. Few lanterns at all winked in the rain. The beady-eyed gatekeeper scrutinized them critically from under the shelter of his dripping hood before sliding back the bolts and letting them through the town's only gate. A few more yards down yielded a slightly decrepit-looking inn whose faded sign The Butchered Goat flapped in the wind.

"Cheery place," Aragorn observed wryly as he half-slid, half-fell from his mount, his legs stiff and trembling with exhaustion. His now quite-useless hood dripped into his eyes and he yanked it off as soon as they ducked into the warm odor of the stables.

It smelled of horse and moldy straw. But it was empty and dry- at that moment that was all Aragorn cared about. His body ached from long, unaccustomed hours in the saddle, fighting against the wind, and his stomach clawed at his backbone with hunger. He glanced longingly towards a locked door opposite them which led into the back of the inn. Through the frosted pane, he could see the glow of firelight. Shivering in his drenched tunic, he wrapped his arms around his chest.

Haldir guided Lintedal into an empty stall and immediately began untacking her. "The faster you work, the quicker you'll warm," he remarked, sliding off the saturated leather saddle.

Aragorn hastily made his horse whose name was Maethor comfortable, had him fed, watered and dried off in less time than it took Haldir to finish removing all harness. He took his own time, carefully brushing his mare's chestnut coat until it shone. After a further quarter of an hour, Aragorn was about ready to go inside without him.

"I know elves have all the time in the world but at this rate I'm going to turn into a ranger ice statue before you're done," Aragorn said, trying to get the elf to make at least a little haste.

"Good. Then I won't have to listen to you whine," Haldir said, without altering the long, languid strokes through Lintedal's mane.

"All right. Then I'll help you," Aragorn offered picking up the brush he had used on Maethor.

Haldir flashed a quick look at him over the horse's flank but made no move to stop him.

Lintedal nearly knocked Aragorn head over heels as she half-reared onto her back legs, almost crushing the human between her bulk and the wall. Aragorn quickly ducked away and stood, bewildered and wide-eyed as the mare continued to toss her head, a whinny breaking out of her throat to rattle the rafters.

Catching hold of her, Haldir soothed her neck and whispered softly to her. When she had calmed a little, he offered the still-shaken man an apologetic smile. "She is… unaccustomed…to the touch of men, I fear." Despite Aragorn's Númenorean descent and the strain of elvish blood running through his veins, he was still undeniably human no matter how he would wish it otherwise.

Aragorn smiled ruefully and deposited himself on a bale of hay a comfortable distance from the agitated horse. "Like steed, like rider." The words came out before he had really thought about them and he pressed his lips together tightly, glancing up through dark hair at his friend who remained stroking the horse's neck with his back to him.

"Sorry that was thoughtless," Aragorn brushed a hand over his tired eyes, unaware of the chill sucking his bones through a hot flush of embarrassment.

A soft almost breathless exhalation was the only admonishment he received.

Unable to pretend to use it anywhere else now that the horse's coat gleamed brighter than silk, Haldir tossed Lintedal's comb into his bag.

Aragorn winced as it clattered loudly.

The elf faced him, arms folded as he towered over the seated ranger. "In the past, yes, I have…been mistreated…at men's hands. That doesn't mean the merest allusion to them needs to leave your already-limited vocabulary simply to accommodate me. Agreed?"

As Aragorn nodded meekly, Haldir began to gather up his cloak. He wished he felt as sardonically amused as he wanted Aragorn to think. The ranger's words had not shaken him…exactly…But their current situation in the middle of a remote town with nothing but humans for company already made him uneasy and tense. He didn't need the reminder.

After a few moments of quiet, Aragorn felt the need to break the uncomfortable silence. "You know you could have warned me your horse would attack me." He said with a hesitantly teasing grin.

"The imagined look on your face was too priceless to resist." Haldir bent his attention on repacking his gear but one corner of his mouth twitched.

The ranger stared at his companion in astonished incomprehension, unsure whether to laugh or not. "I could have been knocked silly by your horse and you think it's funny?"

"That will teach you to use her as a living shield."

"I will never understand elven humor. Not ever," Aragorn muttered to himself, secretly relieved at the lightening mood. Haldir's soft chuckle dissipated the last vestiges of tension between them. Shivering again, the ranger heaved himself up and began pacing again. "Are you nearly ready yet?"

Haldir hesitated, glancing around at the two quite comfortable horses, their repacked and organized saddlebags, the cleaned gear, anywhere but at Aragorn's face. "I may stay out here with Lintedal tonight. She's still a little unsettled…"

Aragorn looked at the horse who was happily munching away at her late meal. "She looks fine to me. Come on, the inn's warmer and drier than this drafty place." Had he been a little less focused on the cold and his own weariness, he might have noticed the look of discomfort that crept across the elf captain's face. "And I'd rather not sleep in a mucky horse stall if there's a bedroom ten yards away. Come on. I'll treat you to a cider."

"You don't have any money," The elf reminded him, leaning against Lintedal's flank.

Aragorn's eyes danced as he reached into his overcoat pocket and jingled a small drawstring bag. "Not entirely-I got a little before we left."

"From who?" Haldir gave the man an incredulous look, wondering which of his idiot command would have voluntarily lent the man coin.

"Rameil. He said treating you to a drink would be a good way to mellow you." The ranger held up his hands defensively when the elf shot him a quelling glare. "His words, not mine! Come on. What could happen?"

A thrill of premonition ran through the elf at those words and he shook his head as he reluctantly followed the ranger. "Knowing you? Something always happens."

A gust of warm air wafted the mingled stench of tobacco juice, pipe smoke and roasted meat to their nostrils. But it was old and stale. The low-ceilinged common room despite a permanent haze of smoke was remarkably uncluttered with husbandmen. Glimpsing it through a partially open set of doors, Aragorn could count on his hands the number of people gathered round the fire and bar.

Haldir seemed relieved as he followed his line of sight. "I may have a taste for ale tonight after all." The elf had pulled his hood up over his face again; an Elf in a small, suspicious town like this would likely cause an uproar which they needed to avoid at all costs.

A few yards down from the common room's doors stood a smaller one leading into the basement kitchens. Above that arched a ratty-carpeted staircase worn by hundreds of pairs of tired, drunken feet. The only ornament in the otherwise bare entrance hall was a low counter on the right side where a man sat in work-strained trousers and shirtsleeves, his cracked shoes propped up on the scuffed wooden surface.

He stood at their approach, a look of surprise and instant suspicion coloring his craggy features. He was a grim man with a short scraggy beard and a morose face. His eyes shone like gimlets as he appraised the two travelers through a thick haze of smoke. A pipe dangled forgotten from his mouth. "What do you want?"

"Two rooms and dinner in the common room," Aragorn replied promptly, sliding over a small fistful of coins.

The man's face brightened when the ranger presented coin and counted the money quickly into his open palm. With his free one, he indicated the double doors, a slightly disgruntled air twisting his thin face. "Most coin I've seen all night- you won't be hard-pressed tonight, lads. Place is nearly empty. No decent folk want to walk even as far as here in this weather. Good thing you stopped when you did; storm's looking worse." As though to prove his point, a rumble of thunder shuddered the rafters.

"Hard spring?" Aragorn offered, figuring he might as well make small talk while the man rummaged around, shoving the coins into his back pocket.

"Hard spring. Hard year," the man grunted, writing their orders down and picking up a thin sheet of paper with a few names scrawled on it. "We don't have locks for the bedroom doors, you understand and I've only got the upstairs ones free, rented the downstairs to a group of hunters come in from the Ridge this afternoon. Your names- for the record books?" His gaze coasted over Aragorn's harmless-looking, still boyish face and his equally harmless if strange answer of 'Strider.' Instead, his rheumy eyes rested on the dark-cowled figure at his side.

"Halbarad." Aragorn answered before Haldir could speak. The man's eyes flickered to him. "His name is Halbarad."

Though his gaze still strayed frowningly to Haldir's cloaked form the innkeeper nodded. "Halbarad. Right. I'm Fabor-if you need anything," he looked as though he wished they wouldn't. "You know, it's not often we get new faces out here." He said, hinting for news.

Aragorn smiled, easygoing and friendly to put the man's suspicions at rest. "Just passing through. On our way north to visit kin. We have two horses in your stalls…" While the young human filled the ostler in on news north and negotiated for the price to board their steeds, Haldir wandered towards the stairs. No lamps had been lit yet and the only light came from the intermittent flickers of purple-tinted lightning spearing the round windows at the top of the stairs.

A door creaked. Rounding the balustrade, Haldir glimpsed a thin sliver of face peeking out at him through the partition between door and wall. A mousy-haired girl with a narrow face stared at him with wide, expressive eyes. She started to pull the door shut when she caught him watching her but she paused just long enough to whisper,

"The ghost is coming."

Haldir cocked his head. She couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve, thin and gangly still with youth, her eyes enormous in a white face. He beckoned her to step out. "It's all right. I won't harm you. What did you say about a 'ghost?'"

She didn't move any further than the doorway but impulsively her hand shot out and grasped his arm. He didn't pull away, not wanting to frighten her as she squeezed his forearm, her sticklike fingers feeling down his wrist to his hand. "Feels warm. You sure you're not a ghost?"

"Quite sure," Haldir smiled as she withdrew her hand, suddenly shy.

"I saw him. Right in there," she pointed across the hall towards the common room. "He was all cowled up like you- in a big, long cloak. He looked right at me once when I brought his drink," her large eyes took on a faraway hint and an invisible shudder passed through her wispy body as though wracked by a sudden chill. "Like looking into a deep well, with no water or nothing at the bottom. Nothing but darkness and dirt. Cold though. Well-cold. Ghost-eyes. Gave me the shivers. I didn't go near him after that."

Haldir, slightly bewildered, wondered who this odd patron was who had so clearly frightened the daylights out of this child. But he nodded comfortingly. "Don't worry. He is gone now."

The girl shook her head even more furiously. Her hand bravely reached out and clasped his even tighter. "No! That's why I said…I saw him again…tonight! Don't go out until morning, please. I don't want him to kill you too."

Haldir stared at her. It took him a full minute to realize Aragorn was calling him.

"Uh-Halbarad?"

"Faline!" the innkeeper barked and the girl jumped, blushing furiously.

"I was warning him 'bout the ghost, sir!"

"What have I told you? Don't go talking about that trash! Bad for business." Fabor crossed the room in six strides, gave her a smart tap across the face and slammed the door after her. Turning to his guests, he smiled sheepishly. "Hope she didn't trouble you, sir. Touched in the head. Always has been. Having funny turns- don't know what I'll do with her. Come on, I'll show you to your rooms."

The shared room was sparsely furnished but clean. A well-stocked fire leant a bit of cheer to the drab whitewashed walls.

Fabor's voice intruded on their examination as he fumbled with his pipe in the doorway. "If the accommodations are to your liking and once you get settled in, the crowd's not big but they'd be obliged for your company downstairs. Been a long while since any of us have heard a good tale or any real news." Still peeping curiously at the friendly ranger's tall companion, he withdrew with a slight bow.

It took some convincing but Aragorn managed to persuade Haldir to join him downstairs at least for a little while. It was too early to go to bed yet. Though rain lashed the windows with all the fury of an angry troll, the common room was smoky and warm with Fabor steadily banking the fire with pine logs and the five or six remaining patrons comfortably settled on their stools.

Haldir toyed with the handle of the promised cider without tasting it as Aragorn stared at him incredulously.

"So, she told you a ghost haunted the inn?" The word touched a memory in Aragorn and he frowned trying to retrieve it as he questioned his friend.

Haldir sighed. This was the third time he had had to explain what the young lady had told him. Aragorn didn't seem to believe it. "No. She said she saw him. Once. His eyes frightened her."

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he pursued with a slightly twisted smile, leaning his elbows on the table.

Haldir met his gaze gravely. "There are things in this world-good and evil-that no one, no matter the length of their lives, can fully understand."

"That's a yes then?"

"Not entirely," at the human's exasperated frown, Haldir pushed his mug aside, careful to keep his voice lower than the usual chatter. "Ghosts as men believe them are but stories to scare small children into going to sleep early."

"Elves don't believe in ghosts?"

"I said not so," Haldir corrected. "But there are not elven ghosts-at least not as men define them. Elves may die either in battle or by will and while most choose the haven of Valinor as the place for their spirit to reside, a very few do not. The Houseless are at once both more dangerous and more harmless than any 'ghost' Men can contrive. They wander the earth of their home and their birth, trying to recapture their lost lives. Men cannot see them though they can feel their presence. To try to commune with them or use them for your own purposes is both dangerous and wicked," He flashed a glance over Aragorn's shoulder. "Of course there are those who would say that even communing with living Elves is much the same."

"Elves, ghosts- it's all fairy talk for the bitty babies," one of the few patrons behind Aragorn had overheard their conversation and put the question to his companions. His own half-empty mug had been often refilled that night. "No sense in listenin' to those."

"What about the men who've gone missing? You don't think that's ghost work?" One of his gang voiced doubtfully with a sideways glance at the two strangers' table. "What about Taren then- if the ghost didn't get him? Or Chaven? Or Pegix! What happened to them, eh?"

"Idiots got on the wrong side of bad folk," the drunkard dismissed, sloshing ale over himself with more than unsteadiness could explain. He set his mug down. "Bad folk. That's all. Bandits and sich. Can't mess with those folk…"

"Bandits rob or kill you fast, dump your carcass in a ditch. Not cut you up like a pig and leave you bleeding to death in the middle of the woods."

"Those woods is a bad place." The drunkard still shook his head, rotating his ale between his hands.

"There have been a lot of these disappearances then?" Aragorn couldn't help asking, remembering their own vivid encounter with bandits just that morning.

The man who had first refuted the drunk's argument looked over at him and gnawed his lower lip before replying, "Often enough. Young men mostly. They leave town for a day or two- go up to the woods to cut firewood or hunt. They don't come back. We've stopped sending out parties to find 'em- ended up losing more men than we found." He shook his head and rubbed his neck thoughtfully. A razor-thin scar stood out starkly against his tanned skin, curving under one ear and just missing the life-giving artery pulsing in his throat. He waved away their interested looks and took a swig from his tankard.

"If you're really curious, ask Dark Car. She knows more about it than anyone I've ever met. Some say probably too much."

"Dark Car?"

He pointed.

Beside the fire in an ashen corner sat a swarthy woman, her tunic showing signs of wear but still functional, her permanently mud-colored boots resting on the chair opposite her as she tilted her own back on two legs. As though hearing her name, she turned her head. Her sharp, slanted eyes gleamed like a wolf's. Tangled black hair down to her shoulders showed premature grey at the temples.

The scarred man continued, ignoring her stare. "Right she-devil she is. She's wasted her life actually looking for the thing. Death wish out in these parts. Dangerous enough as it is without courting trouble…" He hastily let his chair legs come down with a clatter and focused on his abandoned meal.

Aragorn suddenly felt eyes burning the back of his neck and twisted in his seat. The swarthy woman had approached their table and she was staring at his hooded companion with hostile curiosity in her coal-colored eyes.

"I heard you talking to Zaren," she said in greeting. Her voice was oddly raspy as though ill-used or not at all.

"He told us you were something of an expert on ghosts," Aragorn said, trying to direct her attention away from his companion. He failed.

But she did snort at his words with a sideways glance at Zaren who cowered in his seat. "Called me a she-devil more likely. They say the ghost drifts from town to town, leaving the dried husks of young men in his wake. Any who live to see him- and there aren't many-say he has demon-eyes, hidden by a long cloak," her persistent stare swept over Haldir.

Aragorn laughed but his eyes were wary, his face tense. "If we suspected everyone who wears a cloak we'd never trust anyone when it rained."

"I don't think it's a ghost," she continued as though she hadn't heard him. She never took her gleaming eyes from Haldir who remained perfectly still, seeming untroubled by her close scrutiny. "But ghost or not, I'll find him, I promise you that."

The drunkard who hadn't been listening to a word save the last laughed heartily. "You're full of dung, Dark Car! No sense at all in hunting ghosts!"

Fabor, scenting imminent broken furniture, hastily intervened. "Now that's enough, Carlóme. Leave them alone. They've paid and they're staying as long as they want. Go back to your drink, on the house."

The dark woman surveyed the bony ostler through narrowed eyes. Whirling about swiftly, she stalked back to her corner, downed her glass in one, long swallow and quit the room.

Fabor shook his head after her. "Willful creature. She'll come to a bad end if she keeps going like she is."

Haldir stood up, hurriedly followed by Aragorn. "I think it best if we retired for the night as well."

A short time later, the elf captain slid his saber under the bed and lay down still fully clothed on the lumpy mattress. For a while he simply stared at the darkbeam ceiling, his mind churning with troubling thoughts and all he had heard. He was still awake when Aragorn's long, even breaths filled the room and the fire died low.


	2. Cry Wolf

The bed was too uncomfortable. Or the room too close. Or the rain too loud. Haldir didn't know why he couldn't sleep anymore. Careful not to wake the snoring Aragorn, he slipped his boots on noiselessly and, looping cloak and saber over one arm just in case, padded out into the hall.

Flickers of blue lightning silhouetted him against the floor as he passed the hallway's only window. The violent glare briefly lit his eyes as he glanced outside. No stars tonight. Swift as rain drops down a windowpane, he glided down the stairs and into the common room. It was quite silent and empty this time of night. Perfect for him.

Insomnia was no stranger to him. He knew how to pass the long hours to dawn. But since the inn was not his study and he paid by the glass, he thought it best simply to sit before the fire. After stoking the embers up with two or three sturdy logs, he sat back in a tatty armchair with his sword across his knees. For a while he stayed content watching the flames whirl and writhe while they consumed the wood, licking it up in purple, devouring strokes, here and there sparking as they encountered a knot.

Resting his chin in one long-fingered hand, the other splayed on his saber hilt, he stared at the flames, forcing all of his concentration on their colorful weave rather than on anything else. He couldn't explain it even to himself but he felt uneasy. And it wasn't just the presence of humans, their intrusive questions or the young girl's terrified story of ghosts that put him ill at ease. Something stirred at the back of his mind like a wisp of thought only half-conjured before it drops back into blackness, unobserved, untouched, unexamined. But he was at a loss as to what that something might be.

He was deep in thought but not so deep he did not hear the chair's subtle creak as it relinquished a weight. He did not turn as he addressed the shadow behind him. "You look in the wrong place for ghosts." He framed his words carefully. Though his mastery of Westron was flawless, his voice still retained enough of an Elvish lilt to catch the ear of a careful listener.

The dark woman leaned on the chair beside his, as cautious of him as he was of her. "I'm not looking for a ghost." Her eyes glittered when they swept over his face as though trying to pierce the shadows by will alone. "I think the creature I'm hunting is far more dangerous- as well as being flesh and blood."

"Oh?" He tried to sound interested.

"An elf." Her answer made every muscle in his body tense but he hastily forced himself to relax as she continued. "You might think me mad if you're as much a skeptic as Fabor. But I know it's an elf that's been hunting us."

"Why would you think that? It is my understanding the elven refuges are further north. There's no reason for them to journey south unless they seek the sea nor is there any reason they would attack Men." Haldir tried to feign disbelief though his heart had begun to hammer.

"I saw him."

The elf captain raised his shadowed eyes to hers but for the first time she kept her eyes on her hands, her left cradling the wrist of her right. Haldir noticed her fingertips shook slightly.

"I was up in the woods on the Ridge hunting when I saw him for the first time nearly eighteen years ago. I wondered what he was doing up there. Elves don't belong in these woods. They live north, like you said. No reason for them to be here, taking our game. He didn't seem to notice me so I crept closer. I'd never seen an elf before. He had something slung over his shoulder like a sack.

"It was a boy. All trussed up like a goose, crying and cringing. He couldn't have been as old as me back then. The elf sat him down at the foot of a tree, never said a word as he…sharpened his knives. Then he started cutting him. I've never heard anyone scream so loud and so long. But nobody heard. Nobody came. After awhile, I guess the elf got tired and stopped. He left for a bit.

"While he was gone, I killed the boy. Spared him suffering. The elf didn't like that. He caught me out before I could get away, paid me back in full for cheating him. Before I could so much as twitch, he had strung a bow and shot at me. Pierced my hand right through," she held up her right hand and Haldir noticed a ragged, almost circular scar on the palm. "Haven't been able to draw a bow since. And I never did catch him. Even after all these years he's still here. Still plaguing us. Killing our boys…"

She folded her hands over the chair back and stared at him steadily. "Ever met any elves yourself then?"

"A few."

"Nasty creatures," the dark woman sniffed, gazing at her damaged hand. "Lethal to look 'em in the eyes. They can get under your skin, in your head…"

Haldir felt a prickle of irritation that she would judge an entire race on one alone.

"To my admittedly limited knowledge, Elves do not hunt Men. There's no reason for it."

"This one does. And he's getting bolder now after all this time. He's not afraid anymore and he's getting closer and closer to our homes. People lock their doors at night- they never had to do that before. Boys won't stay here, afraid they might be next," she waved an arm around the empty room. "You saw how empty it was tonight-even bad storms don't keep men from a good ale."

She fell silent and he did not speak, mulling over her words. He couldn't understand why one of his kind would…No, the problem was he did understand. All too well. Hatred tended to cloud judgement, give way to revenge, make you do things you later regretted... The question was- for what wrong did this elf seek vengeance? What had happened to him to make him hate Men so thoroughly he was willing to risk his life by walking among them and kill their young?

"But I'm sure you're not sitting up in the dark waiting for me to come and tell you the story of my life," her lips twisted ironically but her gaze never once left him. "You're up late."

"I had more need for thought than sleep."

"Oh?" It was her turn to question. But he shook his head. He didn't care to discuss his uneasiness with her.

"Where are you from? Your accent's…unfamiliar." her eyes calculated him as she waited for a response.

"North. I am traveling with a friend. Early snows forced us further south than we'd intended." Her constant stare was really beginning to make him uncomfortable. For a moment, he contemplated asking her what her problem was but refrained; he didn't need to get her back up more than it clearly already was.

"Do I make you uneasy, stranger?"

Too late, he realized the white-knuckled grip on his saber. Willing himself to relax, he said after a moment of furious wracking for the temporary alias Aragorn had bestowed on him. "My name is…Halbarad. And no, you do not."

"It makes me uncomfortable when I can't see the face of the man I'm talking to…Halbarad." Challenge rippled under the offhand remark. When he didn't say anything, the tinniest smirk curled her lips as though she guessed something he had not. "In my experience men who'd rather not be known only travel through this town for two reasons: they need something or they have something to hide. Which is it for you?"

"Forgive me if I do not feel inclined to indulge your curiosity but I hardly see how who I am is any affair of yours." He knew he roused her suspicions even more but better she think him some kind of brigand than discover he was an elf.

She tried a different tack. The knife at her waist glittered in an ornate sheath as she leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers across her thigh as though they were friends discussing a disagreement over tea. Her oil-colored eyes flickered down at his lap. "That's an unusual blade you carry. Unlike anything I've ever seen before and my father was a weaponsmith."

He mirrored her posture and folded his hands over his scabbard, the very picture of unconcern though he did not blink, an unconscious habit among elves when threatened. "I assume you have a point."

"Where did you get it?" Her eyes suddenly burned as they snapped from the saber to his face. "And why do you cover your face though I'm not likely to know yours from a hundred others I've seen?"

A highly doubtful smile drew the corners of the elf's mouth. "Did you ever hear of what happened to the curious cat?"

"She got her fur ripped off by a wolf for sticking her whiskers in its lair. You going to rip me, Halbarad if I discover your secret?" Her hand shot out and gripped his arm with surprising strength in a woman so small. "Plenty of young men in this town got ripped. But by no wolf."

"I am sorry for whomever you lost but that is not my problem," the captain tugged his sleeve out of her impulsive grasp and stood.

She cursed rudely in a guttural tongue.

To her utter astonishment, he replied right back over his shoulder.

"You speak the language of the Harad, Master?" she asked, reverting to Westron with the slightest hardening around her eyes as she discovered this adversary might not be as easily dissected as she'd thought. Few spoke her native language- especially so close to Gondor and its fiefs.

Haldir allowed the smallest smirk of satisfaction to flicker across his face without bothering to turn around. "A little. I can count, ask which road I'm on and-" after a second's consideration, he spoke a rapid series of short syllables. His syntax wasn't quite polished but he figured he'd gotten his point across when the irritation lines around her mouth deepened.

For him, this conversation was long over. With the slightest inclination of his head to bid her a firm good night, he turned away and to his intense relief, she did not follow.

The stable was completely dark. Breathing lightly, he eased the door almost shut behind him, muffling the rumbling thunder. Though only a faint glimmer peeked through even the flighty lightning was better than this cloying dark. Gripping his un-cooperating leg tightly, he dragged it a few inches further inside. A blood-soaked rag wound round it barely kept him on his feet and it wouldn't for much longer if he didn't sit down. But he knew he had a job to finish. The rest of his men waited for him elsewhere; he told them he could do it alone and he would.

However, he began to regret it as his heart pounded faster in his chest. Phantom shapes swirled before his eyes, twisting into murderous shapes. Fear hammered at his temples as he fumbled for a lantern. Groping his way forward more by memory than sight he finally located one and twisted the tattered wick up, letting the feeble light wash over his surroundings.

Lintedal whickered softly and stuck her nose over her stall door as he approached. The light reflected like a mirror from the horse's chestnut coat. He limped past her. Not caring about the stench, he splashed his sweating face with water from the long trough and, tearing off a rag from his tunic, dunked it liberally to soothe the burning pain. Cursing the ghost and his own stupidity under his breath, he wrapped the fresh rag around his leg. He would have been back sooner if that boy'd just handed over his horses like he'd told him to and not attracted the ghost's attention. A soft rustle made him jump and drop the cloth.

But all he could see were the horses watching him curiously. He swore at them as he snatched up the tattered strip. "Stupid beasts. Quit making so much noise." His words dropped more loudly in the stillness than any sound the animals had made and he paused for a second or two, listening. Relieved when nothing else stirred, he hastily finished off the knot and began to limp towards the inn's side door. He hoped Carlóme had had better luck than he these last few weeks.

Fast and brutal, he didn't even hear the sound of footsteps. But he did feel the knife as it plunged between his upper ribs, missing his spine by inches. He was so shocked he couldn't even scream but he wouldn't have been able to anyway as a cold, leather-gloved hand clamped over his lips.

His injured leg buckled and his attacker let him flop bonelessly on the floor. Caleb tried to roll over but a hard pressure like a boot heel ground into his back, right above the hot wetness drenching his cloak. Like a bug under a nail, he lay pinned helplessly against the flagstones. An ice cold sliver slid along his other leg like a shard of glass. He didn't realize what had happened until he tried to get up and his legs refused to move. The gloved hand forced his face into the hay, stifling his fresh howls.

"No," he moaned, more a breathless sob than a word, his throat choked with hay and blood. As though in response to his plea, the pressure eased up, his attacker letting him run like a cat allowing the mouse to escape just beyond reach of its paws before snatching him back again. Nevertheless Caleb crawled desperately to get out of range of the knife. His back seared like fire and every jerky movement brought a new spasm of agony. But he was almost to the door…

He didn't know it was locked.

Seeking solace, Haldir headed towards the stables. The side door was slightly ajar. Surprised, Haldir slid through it and glanced around. A lantern flickered on the post closest him. The elf captain pulled it down from its peg and lowered the flame a little. Who on earth would have been foolish enough to leave a flame so close to hay? A shrill whinny from Lintedal alerted him. The mare tossed her head over the stall door, distressing, high-pitched cries tearing out of her throat as she saw her master. Running to her, he clasped her head before she could hurt herself.

"Shh…shh…pen neth. Díno, híril bain nin," he whispered until she calmed down. An odd little ridge brushed against his hand as he stroked her smooth neck.

There was a dark spot on her coat. As he brushed at it, it crumbled away under his fingers, dark like mud but as he held the lantern a little closer, his eyes widened. Swiftly, he checked his mare over but he couldn't find a scrape or scratch on her. Where had the blood come from?

It didn't take long for his keen eyes to spot a spatter on the stall door, a drop here and there in the hay all over the floor. He eyed the long double smear stretching past the water trough into darkness. Clearly the wounded party had been dragged…

Heart pounding, he followed the path of bright red towards the unlighted part of the stables where hay bales stacked three high against the wall. He took the lantern with him and kept one hand clasped on his sword hilt, listening. But only silence and Lintedal's continued disquiet pressed on his sensitive ears. His light fell on a pale hand. Now certain what he would find, his stomach flipped over.

There was too much blood. For a moment, it blinded him as the light bathed it in crimson intensity. Though a witness to many strange and unspeakable things in his lengthy career, for several, long minutes, the captain of Lórien could only stare.

The man lay sprawled on his face, one cloudy eye upturned towards the one who had found him too late. A spidery hand still clutched in vain at the dirty flagstones, the fingernails ragged as though he had tried to claw off his attacker. And failed. A deep stab wound a few inches to the right of his spine had brought him low. Haldir stared at it. But his killer had not stopped there. He had torn his victim's back open all along one side, ripped through cloth, skin, muscle…Haldir thought he saw a white glint under the mess. But even though the original slash was devastating, that didn't explain all the blood pooled under the body.

Avoiding the crimson slick and a curl of blue intestine glistening in the straw, Haldir knelt beside the dead man and edged aside a loose bandage, touching the trouser thigh where a neat, round hole punctured the fabric. Exactly the size and shape of wound an arrow would leave. Like the very arrow he had shot into a bandit that morning.

The elf sat back on his heels with a shake of his head. The raider had been a bully and a fool. But even he didn't deserve to die like this, in such fear and pain. No one did. As big as he was he had fallen prey to something far more deadly…

Casting a quick glance around the still-empty stables, Haldir examined the corpse with a more judicious and militaristic eye. The killer had been either very skilled or very meticulous or both. There were no footprints though blood had gotten everywhere even Haldir's boots had not escaped a little stain. No tracks, no signs, no weapon. Maybe the murderer was a ghost, Haldir thought, his lips twisting into a wry smile as he reached for the man's shoulder to roll him onto his back.

The blow struck without warning. Shooting pain slammed into his awareness as something hard smashed into the side of his jaw. Half-stunned, Haldir landed hard on his back, the stench of hay and blood strong in his nostrils. Flipping over, he gathered his knees under him but as he tried to rise another hammer-stroke caught him right between the shoulder blades.

Strong fingers fastened around his throat, cutting off his oxygen as a ruthless hand forced his head into the straw. Haldir gasped for air and inhaled dust. Black spots instantly swam before his eyes as his lungs screamed to breathe. In a blind haze, he caught his invisible attacker's wrist and drove his other elbow sharply backward. A satisfying grunt of pain and instant loosening of pressure told him he had struck flesh. Tearing himself free, he lashed out hard and his boot connected, eliciting a yelp from his attacker.

Life-giving air dragged back into his lungs as the elf drew his saber and resisted the urge to rub his bruised and stinging throat. He tightened his hold on his weapon as his assailant pulled himself to his feet, nursing his side.

"What are you doing?" Haldir rasped as Zaren slowly unfolded himself and picked up the unstrung bow he had struck the elf with.

The scarred man's face twisted with rage and disgust as he leveled the bow like a club. "I could ask you the same thing, demon. Look what you did to Caleb!"

Wildly, he swung out but this time Haldir was ready. One flick of his wrist sent the bow skimming out of the man's hands. He dodged a lashing fist and with a deft twist raked the very tip of his blade along his cheek. Any more pressure and he would have split Zaren's face wide open to the point of mortally wounding him.

As it was, the cut only startled him enough to stop him in his tracks. Like a wolf, Haldir was on him. He shoved the man backwards and pinned him against the wall by the throat. Applying pressure with the flat of his saber, he growled low. "Listen to me! I did not kill this man, you are mistaken."

"I… saw…you…" Zaren ground out around the restrictive steel. But he couldn't meet the elf's incensed stare and dropped his eyes.

"You saw me standing over him, yes, I found him just as you did." The man refused to see reason and tried to spit in the elf's face.

The undeniable creak of bowstrings echoed loudly over Zaren's ragged panting. "Let him go, Halbarad, or we drop you."

Haldir took his eyes off Zaren to feel a sword blade pricking his ribs. Following the steel, he met Carlóme's smirking face with six other women beyond her, all pointing arrows straight at his chest.

He released Zaren who slid down the wall, palming his bleeding cheek and gasping. A blonde woman moved carefully forward and helped him to his feet, never taking her eyes off the elf. Something in their fearful, anxious eyes confused Haldir. None of them seemed to want to come near him though they accused him of murder and had more than enough hands and weapons between them to do so. Then he realized.

His cloak hung off him wild and disarrayed from the fight. Despite the hard days of travel, the dust and burgeoning bruises, Haldir could be mistaken for nothing less than he was. His otherworldly eyes and long, golden hair that didn't quite manage to conceal the tips of his pointed ears spoke volumes to the now completely silent company.

Then Carlóme laughed. "Well, damn me, you're the handsomest killer I've ever seen. Isn't he, girls?"

A few of them leered and whistled cruel assent.

Haldir's eyes narrowed. The words bit harder than she knew. "I am no killer. I already explained-"

The dark woman's eyes and aim flickered pointedly downwards. "You have blood on your boots."

"But not on my hands."

A tall, rapier-thin woman with wild red hair jeered at him.

"There's blood in here too," The woman who had helped Zaren up peered inside the water trough which was tinged crimson.

Carlóme's lip curled in a supercilious sneer. She gestured to her band, a few of whom carried ropes and other restraints. "Take him."

The number of arrows pointed in his direction made Haldir rethink trying to fight his way out of this. So he did not resist when they grabbed him. But the women's blood was up and they were merciless. One of them fisted him in the stomach while another whacked the joint behind his knees. Once he was down, they all started in on him. Too many fine men and sons had been lost for them to be anything but completely convinced they had caught their families' killer at last.

Haldir tasted blood in his mouth as someone's long-fingered hand clawed his face and cracked his head against the stone floor. He struggled feebly as a hand dragged the saber out of his and wrenched his arms behind his back. Trying to get his knees under him, he heaved against the restraining hands but someone grabbed his ankle and tugged, forcing him flat again as another kick connected solidly with his side. He heard a crack and sharp pain lanced through his ribs. With a soft cry immediately cut off, he curled in on himself, nearly blacking out before Carlóme's voice rapped,

"That's enough. I want him alive. Get him up and take him to the cellar- Fabor says he can lock him there until morning."

The innkeeper stood just within the entrance hall with another lamp when they triumphantly dragged their half-conscious quarry towards the basement stairs, bound with so many ropes and cords he could scarcely move. The old man's pinched face blenched. "You got him! By heaven…" he stared at the elf's pale, bloodied features in the light and swore an oath under his breath. "I do believe in ghosts. And demons! And Elves! Whatever next?"

Two of Carlóme's ladies went ahead to light lanterns while the dark leader herself guarded her prisoner with a knife against his chest. "One wrong move, elf, just one. I want you alive but I don't need you to be."

It was damp and cool in the cellar. Kilderkins of ale, cider and wine were stacked in sections and on shelves all around the cavernous room. The hunters dropped the elf in a corner, a parallel guard of casks and firkins at either side. Zaren brought out another length as thick as his forearm used to secure barrels and braided this through the elf's bound arms, around his chest and the horizontal bulk of a barrel.

Dazed and still not understanding why this was happening to him, Haldir was brought rudely back to the situation as the ropes jerked tight around his chest and the first flickers of real panic sent an electric jolt through his body. Choking down a chunk of raw fear at his own helplessness, he tried not to flinch when the man roughly unfastened his sword belt and ripped the sheath away.

Tugging to make sure the knots were still tight, Zaren straightened and gave his leader a short nod. "There. That should hold him. But, maybe I should stay here…just in case…"

"Yeah," the blonde woman agreed, testing a curved blade on her palm. "I wanna see him squeal."

Carlóme shook her head, her eyes never leaving her prisoner's bowed head. "No, Kari. Go- all of you. I want to talk to him myself. Alone."

"Will you all right…alone…with him?" the man asked, his tanned face guarded and anxious. He touched her sleeve.

"Just keep watch. Don't forget to lock the door," she said, not even deigning to look at him.

With unsatisfied sighs, both he and the remainder of the band nodded and disappeared up the steps. The blonde woman named Kari cast a pout in her leader's direction and spat on the prisoner before spinning on her heel and stalking after the others. Carlóme heard the lock click obediently on the other side and smiled.

"Caleb was Kari's man. A good man, good fighter, my right hand and look what he is now? A pile of meat, giving me just one more reason to want your blood," Her triumphant smile sharpened as she leant down and viciously slapped him with an open palm then reversed direction and slapped him again, her nails gouging a thin red line across his cheek.

She wiped her hand on her trousers and glared at him as though it was his fault he was bleeding. "Seventeen years…I've been waiting seventeen years to have you like this and tonight you walked right into my hands. I'm actually disappointed it was this easy. I thought Elves were keen folk, hard to catch." She laughed, the sound ringing with anything except humor.

But she had made the mistake of getting too close. His foot shot out and his hard-soled heel caught her right in the leg. Stumbling back, she cursed then started chuckling as she rubbed her shin. "That's it? The big, bad murderer can do no more than kick like a haltered filly?"

Her voice grated on Haldir's ears even as the ropes burned against his wrists; fingers tingled from lack of blood. The stinging blows, coupled with the one he had taken earlier to his head made his vision swim disconcertingly and drawing in shallow, careful breaths, he felt the sting of a cracked or broken rib. But he hurt too much elsewhere to tell which. And it wasn't just physical wounds either that made his breath come faster.

Closing his eyes, he tried to ignore the memories clawing to surface since Zaren had tightened the cord. Once more he was at the mercy of humans. Once more a killer. Haldir swallowed down bile at the thought. This was not the first time he had been called so. Even he wasn't so sure it wasn't true. He was a soldier after all: he killed to survive, to protect his home, his family, his life. What was the difference between what he did and what he had seen tonight?

Still he knew better than to wallow in self-pity or wishful thinking. He was a soldier, a captain of Lothlórien. He still had his renowned pride left. It wouldn't help him if they intended to kill him but at least he would have a little dignity for his death. Shaking tendrils of hair out of his eyes, he straightened his aching back as best he could and looked his tormentor in the face.

Carlóme's dark face crumpled in a scowl. "Well, then, my pretty filly, I guess I'll have to break that proud spirit in good and proper- before we shoot you. After all that's what happens to broken horses isn't it? You probably won't go easy. You're clever, I can see that. You even managed to fool the boy who was with you. He's lucky- we probably saved his life."

Aragorn. Haldir felt a shock which molded quickly into guilt. Not once since he had found Caleb in the stables had he thought of his friend. What will Estel think when he finds out I am dead? Will he even know? And the killer was still out there, preying on men while Aragorn slept, safe and warm upstairs. Completely unawares. A cold chill fastened around the elf's heart like the talons of a bird of prey.

Carlóme's knife-like smile returned, half-lidding her eyes. "Not so confident now are you? You should be worried, elf. You have a lot to answer for."

Watery moonlight dappled through the round panes and lit a path down the carpeted stairs as the storm rumbled its way northward. Moonlight gleamed on the banister's dark wood until a black-gloved hand slid up it, momentarily disrupting the reflection. He hadn't achieved all he wanted but the night had still been profitable. He was pleased.

As he reached the top of the stairs, a clatter broke out below, shattering the deathly hush. Ducking swiftly away from the window, he concealed himself in a corner, listening hard as orange light shone briefly on the floorboards below before double doors swung closed and extinguished it.

"Quietly now, don't let him hear."

He stiffened. Did they know? Surely not. He had been quick enough. He tensed, waiting for them to come up the stairs. But they didn't.

"Where's Zaren?"

"Waiting in the stable for Caleb as you ordered, Lady."

"We'll catch him tonight, Fabor. You have someplace we can keep him?" a male voice asked. The lower register made him lean forward a little but the words nonetheless carried right up the empty stairwell.

The old man sounded frightened out of his wits. "Well…uh…my-my wine cellar might do…doesn't have bars or anything…but the door locks. Locks good and tight. You can keep him there until morning. But get rid of him- bad for business, a killer in the establishment…"

"If we stand hear yapping all night, we won't get the chance," another woman's voice, this one more authoritative than the others, lashed with irritation.

The shadow smiled at her impatience and wagged an invisible finger remonstratively towards the stairs.

Their voices faded away and silence reigned again. Realizing he had tarried here too long, he slipped away to find an exit. It would be light soon and he far too visible in his bloodstained clothes. It would take a lifetime to wash them out. The man had bled all over him like a…well, like a man. Someone had left a door cracked at the top of the stairs and the figure slipped nimbly through the partition without nudging it wider.

Though there were two beds only one was occupied. A young man lay on the pillow closest the door, the sheets tangled around his waist, his bare back towards the window. The figure tilted his head slightly and moved a little closer, fingering the hilt under his cloak. He glanced under the bed and a slight smile twitched invisible lips as he saw the broadsword hidden there. But on the wrong side. You didn't want your sword blade out of reach should danger come calling. He straightened and his cloak fluttered slightly as he drew the knife.

The tiniest scrape on the window-so quiet no ordinary person would have remarked it- but it was enough to alert the shadow for it drew back from the sleeping man. He had not time for this. The dark woman would be hunting him more furiously now than ever when she found the corpse and it would do no good if he got caught here. He could not afford to indulge himself yet.

Eyes wide open in the darkness, Aragorn gripped the knife handle concealed under his pillow in a tight fist. He didn't dare stir as he heard the window catch flip open and an icy gust chilled his skin.


	3. Predatory Instinct

Minutes bled into hours of eternal silence in the empty lightlessness of the cellar. When she realized the elf no longer listened to her nor would react to threats or blows, Carlóme stopped talking. For a long time they stayed like that, in silence. As easy and carefree as though in her own bedroom, Carlóme lay down on a flour sack, turned the lantern down to a smolder and slept as though to enforce a sense of privation on her prisoner.

Haldir could not sleep. His hands were numb and he was pretty sure his wrists were bleeding from the constant struggle to free himself. Zaren had been unfortunately extremely thorough and the knots drew so impossibly tight from all the pulling he didn't think they would ever loosen save with the aid of a knife.

Listening to the woman's steady breathing, Haldir rested his head against the barrel's wooden surface and stared up at the invisible ceiling as though hoping to catch a glimpse of the room above. Images of Aragorn, slashed and brutalized like the man in the stables made Haldir's blood run cold. Despite their differences and despite the fact that he hadn't known the man long, he felt oddly attached and worried if something should happen to him. No, he told himself firmly whenever these visions arose- and they did all too frequently with nothing else to occupy him- Nothing was going to happen. Aragorn could take care of himself. He'll be fine. He'll be fine. Even if he is dead, he's in better shape than you.

Even though the basement was windowless to protect the wines from souring, Haldir knew dawn was yet a long way off. By that time, he might have joined Aragorn if the ranger had fallen victim to the invisible killer.

Unable to stand guard outside any longer, Zaren came down the steps in the cold hours and watched the elf from the bottommost one, his eye occasionally straying to the sleeping woman. Haldir did not make eye contact with him though he did notice the man had slapped a rude bandage on his slashed cheek. The thought made him smile a little.

After an hour or so, Carlóme woke up and looked at him, ignoring Zaren's presence. "Ready to talk yet?" She folded up her sack and tossed it over a firkin as she stretched. "I imagine that has to be pretty uncomfortable."

It was but Haldir would be damned before he spoke one word of complaint to this vile harpy.

"I told you it's easier for you just to talk. Now that you're caught there's nothing you can do or say that's going to change the fact that I will kill you. We know what you did. But I want a confession from your own lips. Then I know our men are revenged and maybe you can go to the Void with a clear conscience. All I want to know is the facts: where you hunted? Are there other elves in this or are you the only one? Where did you hide the bodies?"

Haldir licked dried blood from his lip. His voice was steady but rough and dry from not using it in hours and the lack of drink offered him. "And I have already told you that I cannot answer your questions because I have no idea what you are talking about," he raised piercing eyes to her face. "I did not kill that man."

"And Zaren saw you," she pressed her fingers to her lips in a gesture of mock-consideration. "I think I trust his word more than yours, elf. However," Reaching down into a little satchel at her feet, she extracted a little, green glass bottle. "Your word would be worth its weight in gold with a little of this." She shook the bottle causing the indigo liquid within to swirl like sea-tossed waves. "This is called harsari: I didn't really want to have to use it but you're leaving me with no choice since you don't feel like volunteering what I want from you."

Haldir pressed his lips together as tightly as he could but she didn't yet move towards him. Rummaging still in her sack, she pulled out a thin stick about the size of her middle finger but the tip glittered with steel.

Kneeling beside him, she pushed his sleeve up past the elbow and drew a small, thin-bladed knife from her side. Haldir tried to crane his neck over his shoulder to see what she was doing but it was impossible.

"This'll only hurt a bit- and that's just the first step." Her voice said.

A sharp pain slid down his forearm just beneath the wrist and he gasped as a wet warm sensation glided down his skin. He tried to twist his wrists, jerking again at the hard knots but Zaren stood up and seized his shoulders, pinning him firmly against the barrel.

"Stop it. You'll only make it worse," the man hissed in his ear.

Trapped between the barrel and the muscled human, Haldir could barely move let alone defend himself. Carlóme dragged the lantern closer and opened the hinged door. After holding the metal-tipped device briefly in the flame, she stabbed it through the wax seal of the bottle and allowed a little of the liquid to taint the edge. "A little goes a long way," she laughed.

Haldir shut his eyes as the heated needle stabbed deep into the cut on his arm, carrying its toxin with it. He barely noticed when Zaren released him and Carlóme stepped back, her face taut, watching him.

At first he didn't feel anything expect an odd heat in his wrist. Then a pulse of fire radiated outward, sweeping up his arm to his shoulders to the other arm. He was burning alive. Flames licked at his skin and seared up his fingers, sending sheet after sheet of searing agony sweeping through his body. Had he breath enough to scream he would have. Carlóme watched him twitch, her tawny face smooth and expectant.

Eventually the pain's claws retracted, easing out of his skin, leaving him soaked in perspiration which instantly iced in the temperature of the basement. Haldir kept his eyes closed, his head lolling back against the barrel. Despite the chill, the wood felt good and damp.

"The chieftains of my country find this a most desired technique for dealing with traitors and spies," The woman said, the needle trembling in her hand. But he did not stir, didn't buck or convulse as she had seen once. Frowning, she looked at the needle then abruptly fitted it through the tiny slit in the bottle again, washing it thickly with the indigo poison.

"Once isn't enough for you, hmm?"

The pain maelstrom was less poignant this time but the fire swept in with as much fury as ever and this time a cry did escape his lips before it faded into coolness. But instead of comfort, the cool water drowned him, flooded his lungs, smothered him in cold. The stone floor lost its firmness and slid away from him as the drug left him reeling and disoriented, sagging in his bonds. A strange ringing filled his ears and he opened his eyes.

He felt surprisingly calm all of a sudden and the pain receded to a manageable throb in the back of his mind. Harder to ignore was the numbness radiating out of where she'd stabbed him. It spread until he couldn't feel anything when she slapped him, hard enough to re-split his lip. He could feel something trickling down his chin and a vague part of him acknowledged it was blood but he was remarkably unconcerned by it.

What did concern him was the walls seemed to be moving.

Carlóme growled low under her breath. "Why isn't it working? He should be screaming his confession by now!" Frustrated, she ripped the needle out of his skin, accidentally snapping the point off as she did so. Cursing, she flung the useless haft away. "Make yourself useful, find me another one," she snapped at Zaren who got smartly to his feet.

"Lady, those things are pretty potent. Be careful you don't-"

"Who cares if I give him more than I'm supposed to? He's not got long to live anyway. Besides, Zaren, Elves aren't like you and me. The harsari won't work on them in small dosages. Did you find it yet?"

Reluctantly, the man handed over another of the little sticks and watched as his leader stuck it in the fire. He glanced over at their prisoner. The elf wasn't looking too good and mingled guilt and satisfaction warred for mastery in the male hunter. He didn't approve of interrogation like this but after what this monster had done…He stamped down on his guilt and leaned back on the steps. But he kept his eyes averted.

Haldir didn't even feel the third insertion. The fire hazed his vision in vivid red flashes and orange spots of exploding lights that curled and swooped upon one another metamorphosing into green hawks swooping over a field of blue rabbits. Black rain washed all the rabbit fur and gore away, leaving him staring at the grey wall. The stone blocks trembled and began to melt, twisting and warping as though giant, invisible hands were shredding them as easily as dry leaves. It made his stomach heave so he closed his eyes.

What little Carlóme could see of his eyes before he shut them was black, the pupils largely dilated and unfocused. She crouched beside him and said in a low, steady voice. "Can you hear me? Elf?"

Her voice stirred something in Haldir and his eyelids flickered. There was something he had to tell her…or keep from her…something shameful…something dangerous…But he didn't know which was which: whether he should tell or not. He frowned, trying to remember. What had she wanted from him?

"Can you hear me?" she repeated, growing frustrated when he continued to stare at her blankly. In disgust, she threw down the needle and stalked towards the back wall, raking a hand agitatedly through her hair.

"Lady," Zaren suddenly whispered, nodding with his eyes.

The elf's eyes were closed but his lips moved. In two strides, Carlóme crossed the room and bent down close to him, listening.

"It's a war…you have to fight to survive, there's no other way. Kill…or be killed…"

A fierce, leonine smile twitched Carlóme's lips as she turned to her companion. "It's working."

Haldir's head shifted towards the sound of her voice. He opened his eyes.

And saw the plains. Black and barren, Dagorlad was choked with endless dust and rock. He could almost feel the harsh grit of the battle-swept region stinging his eyes, digging under his armor and coating his sword in a fine paste of dirt and blood. The bodies were everywhere, right where they'd piled them. All orcs, all dead. The ambush had nearly cost them their lives.

With a fluid move, he shoved his sword through an orc's back, slashing downward through crude knitted plates seeking the flesh beneath. The creature screamed and it echoed in Haldir's head. Thick, black blood ran down his sword hilt and onto his wrist.

"It's a war! You have to fight to survive, there's no other way. Kill or be killed." He could almost hear his old sergeant's familiar roar at the troops.

A hard, female voice oddly disembodied from where he was asked him. "What did you do with the bodies?"

"There wasn't…time to bury them…" He thought he spoke the words aloud but his throat was choked with dust and he coughed.

"He can't see us can he?" Zaren asked over the elf's harsh coughing. Leaning forward, he passed his hand in front of the elf's face but Haldir didn't so much as twitch, his eyes focused on that far wall, his jaw rigid with concentration.

"What did they do to you to earn your hatred?" That female voice asked him, the question worming into his consciousness as sudden hatred reared up like a venomous snake ready to strike. He didn't know where it came from, hadn't felt something like it in thousands of years but though the feeling was old, it was no less powerful as he stared into the face of a remembered foe.

Ramir slashed at his prisoner's back with a rosebush switch, his white face taut with rage and exhilaration. "Come on, demon eyes. I'll make you bleed for my brother! For my friends! You don't deserve to live."

Nudging aside the Gondorian captain who had once attempted war on the Galadhrim of Lothlórien, Haldir stared at the bloody crosses marking his victim's back. The white shoulders trembled.

Again the woman's voice spoke, louder this time as though fighting through a fog. "Did you kill that man?"

"He nearly killed me," Haldir heard himself say though he felt very detached as though this were happening to someone else. He stared at Ramir curiously. He could have sworn that man was dead. Long ago…

He glanced down at his own bleeding, trembling form at his feet. So long ago…

He stared into his own face like a mirror. But this was not the reflection he wanted to remember: this was waxy, full of hatred and fueled by grief. The red and deeply hollowed eyes. He saw it so clearly, so closely…and he couldn't stand it. Once before, he had been driven there, to the very brink of his sanity and he couldn't go back…back to that precipice because then he would fall. He would lose himself utterly. But stepping back proved even more dangerous, for there was no ground beneath his feet. Blank air opened up and he fell into blackness.

His muscles jerked involuntarily. But there was no crushing impact, no splintered bones or broken body. He blinked and found himself, still bound, still seated where Zaren had dropped him. From a few feet away, Carlóme watched him, an unfathomable expression in her slanted eyes.

Every inch of him shook. Haldir let out a trembling exhale and allowed his head to drop exhaustedly onto his chest. He didn't know when or where he was, time blurred together, the years rolling around inside his head so fast he couldn't keep track. His heart raced away in his ears as though he had run a hundred miles and for a moment he feared it would break his chest. Carlóme's assumption was wrong. Three doses of harsari was too much for anyone's body to take.

As the darkness of either death or unconsciousness rimmed his rapidly narrowing vision, Haldir leaned his head back against the wood again.

Aragorn shivered but forced himself up the second dawn light paled the window ledge and the wide open window. The early morning chill seeping through made the hairs on his arms and neck stand up straight as he shut and locked it swiftly.

Rubbing his arms and pulling out a thick, woolen tunic from his pack, Aragorn glanced at the empty bed beside his as he threaded his arms through the sleeves. The sheets were still rumpled but cold. Worried, Aragorn retrieved his sword from under the bed and buckled it on as he rushed down the stairs.

The common room was empty, naturally, for so early in the morning and the fire had died. Thinking that perhaps his friend had gone to visit Lintedal, he swept in the direction of the stables.

But a woman blocked his way with a long bow held careless and unstrung in one hand.

"Excuse me," he tried.

"No one gets in, no one gets out," she said in a bored sort of voice as though she'd repeated herself all night.

Aragorn raised an eyebrow. "My horse-"

"All the horses were moved to the outside paddock. Go check there," she said in the same monotone, staring at her nails. One of them was cracked and caked with something. She dug busily under it, taking no more notice of the ranger.

Aragorn sighed, fighting to keep his frustration from boiling over. "Have you seen anyone else about lately? I came in with a friend, tall, probably hooded-"

He trailed off as the woman's eyes snapped to his face. She examined him for a full minute before saying, slowly, fingernails forgotten, "Nope. Haven't seen anybody hooded. Not anymore," she laughed as though she'd made a joke.

"Kari, stop chattin' it up with the gentleman!" a red-headed woman poked her head out of a door, her voice thundering in the sleepy quiet. "You're supposed to be watching that door for Brenn and Saeryn when they get back!"

"Oh, go stick your nose back in a bottle, Miren!" Kari yelled back. "He's asking about a hooded man- someone he came in with," her eyes widened pointedly at the other as though trying to tell her something.

Aragorn was no fool. An expert on women he might not be but he knew enough to guess something was definitely wrong. They knew something about Haldir and they weren't telling him. He saw the red-head's eyes stray towards the door under the stairs that he remembered led down into the cellars.

He ignored the red-head's feeble "haven't seen him" and walked towards the cellar door.

"Hey, hey! You can't go down there!" Kari panicked, snatching at his sleeve. He shrugged her away and rattled the door handle.

Locked.

"Where's the key?" he asked, turning towards the blonde woman who smirked at him and hid her hands behind her back.

"Don't look at me. I don't have it."

A tug on his sleeve directed his aggravated gaze downward. A slip of a girl with huge eyes gazed up at him. One pale finger against her lips, she beckoned him closer. As he leaned down, she grabbed his hand and whispered in his ear. "He's not the ghost." Without another word, she took off.

Aragorn stared bewilderingly after her for a second then down at the key she'd pressed into his palm.

Kari's face reddened with outrage as she thrust a hand in her tunic pocket. "That little sneak!"

But Aragorn was already through the door.

The swarthy woman kicked the limp boot again. When the object of her rough treatment didn't stir, she cocked her head thoughtfully as she toyed with the ornately bloodstained knife between her fingers.

Zaren looked critically up from his place by the stairs but didn't dare lower his gaze to the figure tied to the barrel. "I told you, that stuff is way too potent for what you wanted."

The woman remained unmoved. "You know he's pretty fair for a gore-chewer. Almost wish I-" She knelt beside the unconscious elf, ignoring Zaren's sour expression.

The rapid thunder of footsteps cut her off abruptly and her head snapped up towards the door which had opened wide, streaming brilliant white light into the room.

Half-blinded and blinking, Zaren turned only to get knocked unceremoniously aside as something barreled hard into him.

Aragorn stumbled over the man and half-tripped down the remainder of the stairs. As his eyes gradually adjusted to the dimness, his keen gaze flicked from the scarred man picking himself up off the floor with a curse to the dark-haired woman who looked startled and gripped the hilt of a knife.

Then his eyes landed on his friend.

Dried blood crusted one side of the elf's face and his grey eyes were bloodshot, and disturbingly vacant. He didn't seem to see the ranger, or the room at all. Ropes around his chest and looped through his arms bound him securely to the heavy body of a barrel.

"Haldir? What did you do to him?" Carlóme merely stared, making no move to stop him as he rushed past her. He snatched up a green glass vial lying on the floor near a firkin and turned it over in his fingers. His brow furrowed. "What is this? What did you do?"

Fire blazed in Carlóme's eyes as Aragorn unsheathed his boot knife and instantly began to saw through the ropes. "What are you cutting him free for, idiot? Don't you know he's a killer!'

The question so threw the ranger that he twisted his head over one shoulder to stare incredulously at her. "What do you mean?"

"He murdered a man in the stables last night. Butchered him. Right in front of Zaren," she jerked her head at the scarred man who nodded confirmation.

"This elf is my friend."

"Your…friend?" Carlóme repeated. She drew the knife.

Aragorn started but didn't go for his own weapon.

"Are you saying you've allied yourself with this creature?" she snarled, striding up to him.

Zaren grabbed her arm, staring down at the ranger's shocked face. "Car, he doesn't know. You heard us talking about the ghost last night, didn't you, boy?"

Aragorn nodded, still confused. He cast a concerned glance at his friend but Haldir still wasn't looking at him.

"Dark Car says it's an elf that's been hunting us. And tonight, I saw this one," his face twisted slightly as he indicated Haldir. "In our stables. He'd killed one of ours. Caleb. Tore him to pieces." The man's eyes clouded and he shook his head hard. "After…after Caleb was dead, he cleaned up and walked right off to the inn, calm as you please. Not a minute later he comes back. I thought he was coming back to-to- I couldn't let him do anything more to my friend. So I grabbed him. That's when I saw his face."

And half beat him to death too, Aragorn thought with a surge of disgust at the purple bruises marring the elven skin. The ranger's breath hissed between his teeth as the man's words registered. If Zaren had his times right, then Haldir must have missed the murderer by seconds only. Instead of leaving out the main door, the killer went right where no one would expect him to go, dodged up the stairs…And right into my room. Aragorn suppressed a shudder.

"You have the wrong elf," he decided, taking up his knife again. "You don't realize what you've done. He is a captain of the Galadhrim, a soldier of Lothlórien."

"The Sorceress's Wood?" Zaren frowned. "I didn't know they left their land."

"Unless they're disgraced or turned exiles," Carlóme interjected snidely.

Aragorn gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. Even in the dim light, he could see Haldir wasn't doing well. Whatever these two had dosed him with had played havoc with his system. Lifting one of his eyelids, he noted the widely dilated pupils and with a touch found the rapid pulse and shallow, ragged breathing. But at least he was breathing. A long, ugly-looking slash oozed blood down one arm. With more fervor then ever the young man attacked the ropes and thrust them away from his friend, maneuvering the elf's body so he lay flat with his head cradled more comfortably against Aragorn's shoulder.

He still hadn't said a word though he was conscious, in a fashion.

Brushing a few limp, golden strands aside, Aragorn explained. "Your killer was in my room last night. An hour before dawn. I heard him slip out my window- he left bloodstains on the sill if you want to take a look. How could Haldir have done that if he was trapped down here?"

Everything was too bright, too hot, too close, too real. Haldir turned his head, trying to find that cool darkness again; there'd been no pain there. No visions. He wanted to…Light smacked his face and he flinched. Everything felt so fuzzy, memory so distant. Why was the ground so hard? Was he back on the battle plains after all? Or on the bank of the Nimrodel? Slowly the world stopped swaying and when he opened his eyes again, everything blurred. A young face leaned over him concernedly, asking something he didn't quite hear.

Confused, he murmured. "Tergon…?"

Cold seized the ranger. "No, mellon nin. It's Strider. Do you remember where you are?"

"How do you know elfspeak, Strider?" Zaren asked.

Aragorn ignored him.

At some point Haldir couldn't remember his bonds had been cut and he lay horizontal, no longer propped up by the barrel. He was shivering. Though Aragorn knew it was due more to the overdose of the drug in his system than cold, he shrugged out of his overcoat and wrapped him in it just in case.

"I…already answered…all of your questions," the elf muttered, still rather incoherent. He was having trouble just separating his labored breathing from other sounds much less understand the question or recognize the person who asked it. He closed his eyes again.

Aragorn tightened his grip slightly to anchor his drifting friend. "No, no more questions, my friend. It's Estel, Haldir. I'm here."

The elf's hazy eyes opened again but it seemed to drain a lot of effort out of him to keep them that way. "Strider…Estel…"

"Yes." Relief pulsed through the young man and he smiled reassuringly. "Are you all right?" he asked automatically in elvish.

It was a stupid question and the look in those cloudy silver eyes made it clear Haldir thought so too.

The elf's white lips twitched but he did not smile. His face contorted slightly as he tried to lever himself into a sitting position. And the visions, like the lingering flashes of a dream, sifted through his mind uneasily: the beatings, the battle, the blood-soaked precipice…Aragorn's hand on his back startled him badly. Like a cornered animal, he arched his back against the wall, eyes narrow.

"Shh, it's all right," Aragorn didn't dare touch him again, afraid of setting off something too severe. He looked pointedly at Carlóme and Zaren. "I think you two should leave."

Carlóme's face tensed with outrage that this boy should order her so but Zaren put a hand on her arm. With one last, murderous glare in the elf's direction she leapt up the stairs. Zaren shook his head after her and glanced hesitantly first at Aragorn then at the elf. "I know what I saw."

"You were mistaken," Aragorn said without unlocking his eyes from those of his friend. "Haldir had plenty of time to kill me and he didn't. Go look in my room. You'll see."

"I think I'll do that."

When he had gone, Aragorn returned his full attention to his friend. The lingering vacancy in the elf's eyes disturbed him.

"How bad is it?" he asked in a voice no louder than a whisper, afraid he might startle him again. When Haldir did not answer him, he gently reached forward.

The iron grip that fastened around his fingers surprised him and he raised his eyes. Haldir was not looking directly at him but his grasp did not relent. "I am bruised. That's all. There's nothing you can do for them."

From the shallow rasp of his breathing Aragorn was sure that wasn't all that was wrong with his friend. But there was something else in Haldir's eyes that gave him pause and he bit his lower lip. By the shadowed look on his face, he imagined Haldir didn't want to be touched right now especially not with associated and painful memories floating so obviously close to the surface. He nodded.

"All right," his gaze flickered downward and he softened the concern on his face with a half-smile. "My fingers are going numb."

The elf let him go.

"I'll see that they stay away from you. Or believe me, there will be more than one murder in this inn," the ranger promised grimly.

Haldir simply stared at the far wall, oblivious.

Aragorn was as good as his word. Zaren must have seen the bloodstains on the sill because for the rest of the week, neither hide nor hair of Carlóme and her band showed though the rumor of a man found murdered in the stables sped like wildfire through the small town.

Haldir sighed and stroked Lintedal's silky neck. The repetitive motion helped orient him and helped him think. After several bad nights of chills and nightmares, the poison seemed to lose its potency and gradually faded. After four days, he felt mostly to all the way recovered. Physically at least. Avoiding certain memories, he sifted through earlier ones. The hunters had removed Caleb's body and cleaned up the visible mess. But his killer was still out there…

Who was preying on young men? And, more importantly, who would be next?

Questions he couldn't answer kept him occupied. And though some part of him felt it was his duty to find out, a stronger part of him just wanted to forget and go on to Rivendell.

"Haldir?"

The quiet voice didn't startle him as it would have two or three days ago but he didn't turn around either. "I'm not hungry, Estel. Thank you."

Predictably, the ranger had brought lunch- as he always did when the elf chose to remain with Lintedal instead of crossing to the common room. Even at this time of day it would be packed full of whispers. People came from all over the town to hear Fabor's glossy account of the grisly murder in the Goat's own stables, and maybe catch a glimpse of the famous killer.

"How do you feel?" Aragorn asked, setting a bowl down carefully and cradling the other on his thigh.

"I think my hands have finally stopped shaking," He had long ago resigned himself to Aragorn's gentle prodding and gave up responding "I'm fine" when the ranger merely leveled him with a raised eyebrow and a you-don't-seriously-think-I'm-going-to-believe-that kind of look. The shaking had been the worst.

They had already exchanged stories and pieced together a little of what they knew. Haldir didn't say much of that night in the cellar, little of which he remembered, and Aragorn didn't ask.

"You do realize that's the second time you've swooned in my arms," Aragorn remarked once the danger passed and it was safe enough to joke about it.

"I did not swoon," said the elf indignantly.

"Fine," Aragorn feigned a careless shrug as he spooned up the day's broth. "Almost swooned."

Like lightning, the elf's hand shot out and buffeted him playfully making him almost drop his bowl.

"You know, Elladan and Elrohir will be very cross when their baby brother returns with less-than his normal acuity because some bear-pawed ogre of an elf continually cuffed his skull in." Aragorn muttered, wiping his fingers where soup had sloshed over the rim.

Haldir chuckled but a dangerous undercurrent edged it. "I was cuffing your brothers' skulls in too when they were your age."

"Really?" Aragorn widened his eyes curiously. "How'd you manage that?"

"They were a lot smaller then."

The ranger feigned thoughtfulness, rubbing his chin. "I wondered where that dent in Elladan's head came from."

Haldir laughed but a sharp pain in his side silenced him swiftly.

"What's wrong?" Instantly alert, Aragorn stopped playing, frowning when his friend winced and curled a hand around his side. "I thought the bruises were nearly gone."

"They are. It's the cracked rib I'm having trouble with," Haldir said, concentrating more on regulating his breathing than the fact that he'd conveniently forgotten to tell Aragorn that little tidbit yet.

"You cracked a rib?" the man questioned blankly. "And you were going to tell me this when exactly?"

"Never, if I could get away with it."

"Well, you didn't."

"I realize that now."

"Stop evading!" Annoyance replaced Aragorn's previous good humor. He really wished Haldir wasn't quite so proud when it cost him his health like this. "How bad is it? Did you even bother to wrap it? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm not. It's not. Yes, I did. And the dead man in the stables was way more interesting," the elf parried, his eyes challenging as he straightened.

"You're as bad as Legolas you know that," the man finally murmured as he reseated himself on a hay bale. "Elves!"

"Humans!" Haldir retorted. He lightly kicked the human's boot to make him scoot over.

"Why would an elf want to kill men?" Aragorn frowned as he shifted. "Any ideas?"

"Several. None of them good." Aragorn's thoughts echoed his own and, with little else to occupy his thoughts while recovering, he had wracked his brains for a suitable answer, finding nothing.

"I just wish I knew," the man said, resting his elbows on his thighs, his meal forgotten.

Haldir leaned against the stall door to take a little strain off his aching side. "Your father will be furious if we delay any longer. He was expecting you by midwinter not midsummer."

"He's used to it."

"Mmm."

They said nothing for a short while after that, content with one another's company and a lazy day stretching ahead.

"So…" Aragorn paused deliberately, mischief dancing in his eyes as he twirled a stray bit of hay between his fingers. "We're in agreement you swooned then?"

"Estel!"

Laughing, the young man jumped up and made a break for the main door.

But it swung open before he could reach it.

Aragorn skidded to a halt, the merriment draining from his face as Zaren peered through the partition. "What do you want here?" the ranger asked in a low voice, stepping back warily and folding his arms.

Haldir appeared at his shoulder.

Zaren licked his lips nervously, shamefaced and awkward. Clearing his throat, he dropped his eyes away from the elf's, staring steadily at the ground beneath his boots. "Look…uh, I-I know I'm probably not welcome here."

"At least in that you're right," Aragorn said. He was not ready to forgive this man for his part in all this. Haldir's hand on his shoulder calmed him only a little. "Say what you must and go."

The man dithered a moment longer, caught holding the door open but not daring to step inside. He ventured to raise his eyes, addressing Haldir. "Look, 'm sorry…about what happened…to you. Really, I am. I thought long about it and I figured even a crazy murderer wouldn't be caught over the body of his…well, if he doesn't want to be found he won't be that easily. Strider here told us you were one of those folk from upstream, the Golden Forest or some such elvish place."

Haldir shot a sideways glance at his companion. "Lothlórien."

"Lothlórien," the man repeated, nodding dutifully. "I'll remember it. Anyway, he told us you were one of those folk who could be trusted- a great hunter and fighter…"

All of a sudden, Haldir realized where this was going. "You want me to help you."

The man bit the inside of his cheek, a hand wandering up to scratch his scar as he always did when anxious or uncomfortable. "I know quite a few of us are sick of beating our heels up against the walls, finding nothing year after year. Stories say all kinds of things about elves being renowned huntsmen and warriors. Most of us would take you on if you were willing- though maybe some of them would just as soon disagree," he glanced over his shoulder and though Aragorn couldn't see her, he knew Carlóme must be close at hand.

"It's your choice, of course. Strider's welcome as well. You can go or stay, we won't stop you. But think on this, lots of young lads and good men have already been killed by this thing. If we don't stop it here, where's it going next? It might spread north. The bodies just keep piling up. He almost killed your friend. What happens if one dark night he manages to do just that? We have a chance to stop him…it…the elf…ghost… whatever it is. We can end it now rather than waste more lives in the future. I don't want those boys on my conscience 'cause we couldn't bring them justice. Do you?"

Haldir listened in silence, torn between instant refusal on principle and his sense of priority. Aragorn and he had planned on reaching Rivendell before the heavy snows swept in. If they lingered even a week or two, there was no telling what kind of condition the roads would be in. He also knew that not all of Carlóme's group favored his joining up with them- the female leader being foremost among them. She had made her opinion of him quite clear despite the fact that he was not the one they sought.

On the other hand, Zaren was giving him a chance to redress the mistakes of the past. And wasn't it his duty? Hadn't he sworn to give aid to those in need? To fight to rid Middle Earth of pestilence and evil? Wouldn't the Lady Galadriel have his head if he didn't do all he could to bring a murderer to justice for his crimes? He raised his eyes to Zaren's face. He couldn't trust these men to trust him but if any peace could be given to those dead boys then he would see it done.

With a long sigh, he faced Aragorn, silently asking him what he wanted to do. But the ranger seemed to have come to the same conclusion as he had and slowly nodded.

"All right. We will come."


	4. The Ridge

Aragorn shoved one hand deep into his overcoat's pockets, clenching and unclenching the stiff fingers to restore a bit more circulation. The other curled frozen around Maethor's reins and would have to thaw loose. It was too cold to ride and the horse's bulk provided a bit of resistance against the lashing wind. Longingly he thought of the breakfast fire they'd left behind but quickly shook it out of his head. He'd decided on this course and he would honor his word. But he couldn't help glancing over at his companion who seemed enviously unaffected by the chill wind battering their company as they picked their way still further up into the treeline.

Thick branches still possessing handfuls of their leaves blocked the weak and watery sunlight which offered no comfort anyway but Aragorn missed it. His sword's pommel, icy cold, bumped against his hip with every long, uphill stride but he was too used to it by now to feel the ache.

Three days they'd been searching with little luck. Still it had been a pretty hopeless venture in the first place. The only starting point they'd had was Carlóme's twenty-year old recollection of where she'd seen the "ghost" last. He probably deserted it long ago after being discovered, Aragorn couldn't help thinking they would never find anything.

"Tired, Brenn?" he addressed the sleepy, nodding figure trudging alongside him. Brenn was the only other male human aside from Zaren and Aragorn himself though he was younger- no more than fifteen. His tousled, sandy-colored locks swung into half-shuttered eyelids until the itching made him swipe at them irritably.

"When are we going to stop?" It was the most he'd spoken since he woke up.

"Soon, I hope," Aragorn chafed his hands together again. "What say we give Zaren a little nudge- make Carlóme stop for lunch?"

The boy raised his eyes which looked bright and alert for the first time all morning. But not for the chance to convince Zaren to stop for lunch. Haldir walked up front with the scarred man and Carlóme, leading Lintedal beside him. For the past four days, he had been a source of constant worship and fascination for the young man though he hadn't been brave enough to talk to him yet. That and his leader refused to let him anywhere near the elf.

He followed Aragorn eagerly as the ranger handed off his reins to Kari and slipped up the line until he walked behind his elven friend.

"What did he look like?" Haldir was saying, trying to sound as patient as possible given the circumstances. He'd done an admirable job of overlooking what they had done to him.

"He looked like you."

But she was really starting to push her luck. The marchwarden carefully tamped down on his rising annoyance. This had been the last quarter of an hour and he was tiring of it. "Yes. Other than that. Was there anything distinguishing? A cloak he wore, a blade he carried- anything."

Her face twisted in irritation as she stared into the trees that sloped sharply downward from the path into a ravine. "I told you, it's been seventeen years."

"And human memories are deplorable remembering important things, I know. What can you tell me?"

"Look, elf, you'd better watch the insolence or you won't have a tongue for it," the dark woman snarled. Her ire, always close to the surface, was already roused by the long days without success. It was not a good time to push her.

Haldir inhaled deeply through his nostrils, the air frosting when he breathed out again. "All right. Please, if you wish me to help you, I need to know anything you can tell me. Insignificant or not."

Carlóme looked back over her shoulder at the land they'd just traversed, still not ready to be overly cooperative but sated enough to avoid another shouting match. "I never asked for your help…and I didn't get a good look at him anyway."

"Are you even sure we are looking for an elf?" His skepticism must have touched a nerve because she spun on him suddenly, halting the entire line.

"Yes, of course, I'm sure! Damned sure! You don't see something like that and forget it."

Her choice of words rankled a little too much as he coaxed Lintedal into a walk again. "This is not an animal you are tracking- not a deer or a wolf."

"Near enough."

He ignored that. "Your man…Caleb was killed with a knife," Not really asking for an opinion just offering one aloud. "It was long, about as long as your forearm, thin."

"What's your point?" the woman said, her eyes glittering dangerously.

"My point is," Haldir said with careful patience. "He was intelligent enough to leave a man bleeding to death at your feet and you could not catch him."

"We caught you easy enough," she said, her head swiveling around to catch his eyes. He knew she was remembering that night in the cellar.

He forced down the urge to slap her vicious mouth. "I was not expecting to be hunted," he placed a light emphasis on the last word as he determinedly turned his gaze straight ahead into the trees. "But we will find nothing out here if we just wander aimlessly."

"Well, brilliant, what's your suggestion?"

"I am working on it."

Aragorn thought this might be a good enough time to intervene but before he could open his mouth, Haldir dropped back beside him with an exasperated roll of his eyes.

"The woman is insufferable," he said, still knowingly within the "insufferable woman's" hearing. Lintedal snorted her agreement.

Brenn laughed. When Haldir switched his gaze to him, the lad blushed and ducked his head.

Aragorn smiled. "Haldir, this is Brenn. He's wanted to meet you. Brenn, Captain Haldir of Lothlórien."

The youth's pale skin and wide, green eyes contrasted sharply with the black of his compatriots. But the obvious awe in his face amused Haldir despite himself.

Brenn bobbed into something that looked a little like a bow and more like a bird trying to pull up a worm.

Unable to hide the smile anymore, Haldir inclined his head with a sidelong glance at Aragorn. "He looks like you."

"Have you ever killed anyone before, Captain?" the boy asked, his eyes huge in his pale, hungry face.

A weighted silence pressed momentarily on the company. Aragorn noticed the whispers behind them ceased abruptly and Kari leaned almost over his shoulder to hear the elf's quiet reply.

"I have."

Aragorn realized that Carlóme and Zaren had stopped talking up ahead and shot a warning glance at his friend which went ignored.

Brenn's eyes went, if possible, even wider. "How'd you do it?"

Haldir stopped and leaned over the boy, his face smooth, hard and completely serious. "I slit him from neck to navel for asking me if I killed anyone."

Zaren's hand clamped firmly around Brenn's slack wrist and dragged him up front, oblivious to the boy's loud complaints.

"You are not helping," Aragorn muttered, trying to smile apologetically as Carlóme scowled suspiciously over her shoulder.

"I see no reason too," Haldir said, the slightest of smirks twitching his lips. "Nothing I do or say will make any here think better of me."

"But you didn't do any such thing! Did you?" Aragorn frowned at his friend who merely widened his eyes in mock-innocence as he leapt further up the path.

It was past midday before they turned off the overgrown and little-used path. Picking their careful way between the bare trees for a bit, they came upon a high bank with a dense scattering of pine trees, the earth soft and supple with dropped needles. A green sward sloped down to a freshwater stream where they decided to rest for a bit.

"Your elf going to come eat, Strider?" Kari asked, casting a sour glance by the horses as she swung the pot out of the fire.

"He's not 'mine,'" Aragorn said, nettled. "And he has a name, Kari."

The blonde woman grinned unrepentantly and shrugged.

Carlóme came up and scooped up a bit of stew, scalding her fingertips. "Let him forage scraps."

"You are unwise, Car, to treat him so," said a woman seated beside the pot, busily rebraiding a frayed bit of bowstring. She was long-limbed and fine-haired, not beautiful by any means but with clear, intense eyes and an innate wariness about her that made the casual observer look twice.

Carlóme laughed. "Don't start your 'Hail the Firstborn' speech, Saeryn. We've heard it too many times already."

"Yeah," Kari jumped in with a sort of fond irritation. "Shut it and come get lunch." Most of the others had already found places close to the fire with their bowls cradled on their knees.

Saeryn ignored them both though she did accept a bowl. "The Eldar are our elder kindred, beloved of Ilùvatar. Under different circumstances we would honor him for they have not been seen in men's dominion since the ending of the last War against the Dark Power in the East."

"I told you before, you're welcome here. Ilùvatar's not," Carlóme growled with the slightest flash in her eyes that told the other woman to watch her step.

"But she's right, we should respect the elves- not all of them can be as bad as the one we're looking for," Narturi, a thin-jawed woman who looked only a couple years older than Brenn, chimed in. But she was looking at the tall elf at the clearing's edge with something clearly more than respect in her eyes.

The blonde woman snorted and muttered something Aragorn didn't catch but Carlóme laughed. Though she said nothing, Saeryn's brow puckered with disapproval.

"So they have not forgotten all the old lore in Gondor," Haldir had come up silently beside them and they all jumped. Ignoring Carlóme's discourteous glare, he helped himself to the stew pot and raised his eyes to the only woman who had spoken in his defense. "How did you come to be so disgraced?"

Aragorn stared at him, too shocked to offer a vocal reproach.

But the Gondorian woman lifted her eyes and chin with grave dignity. "I am not."

The elf captain didn't look convinced but he nodded and, pointedly avoiding Narturi's longing-filled eyes, sat beside Aragorn.

The ill-success of the last few days hung around the camp like a pall and few spoke, intent on their meals and the promise of sleep afterwards. As the rest of the group tossed their bedrolls as close to the cooking fire as possible and lay down, Carlóme settled her back against a tree trunk, deliberately drawing out the light javelin that was her chief weapon from its oil cloth wrappings and sticking it in the earth by her side.

Haldir met her eyes steadily.

Unwearied and sick of listening to these two snark at each other, Aragorn buckled on his knife and picked up his quiver.

But Haldir's quick eyes spotted him before he made it out of the camp. "Strider, if you're going hunting, take someone with you."

Aragorn shouldered his unstrung bow. He would have asked his friend to join him in a heartbeat but he could tell by the slight strain in the elf's jaw that his ribs were hurting more than he would admit. "I'll be faster alone. I won't be gone long."

"An hour."

"Do you want something better for supper than soup?" the young man protested. "I might not be able to find a deer much less bag one in an hour."

Haldir did not relent. "Then track fast. You might be willing to risk your life. I'm not. There's too much we don't know about the land here- or its inhabitants," he cut a sidelong glance at the huntswoman who still refused to let up her gaze.

"There are deer further south a bit," Carlóme said, waving vaguely towards the water. "Follow the stream and watch your step."

Aragorn nodded shortly and set off with Haldir's eyes burning into the back of his neck.

"An hour or I'm coming after you."

Once he was out of sight of camp, the ranger broke into a light run, his long strides carrying him effortlessly through the pathless trees alongside the bank. Every so often, he stooped and scanned the ground for signs of disturbance. Lower down where the stream was wide and shallow, he crossed and detected fresh hoofprints in the sandy bank.

They led him away from the stream and into a grove of close-growing deciduous trees. Here and there he caught more marks: bark stripped from the low hanging branches, a tuft of brown-white fuzz from a winter coat. A mile past the grove, the trees opened and, slowing his pace, he paused cautiously on the edge of a meadow.

A wide expanse of grey-green grass stretched across at least fifty yards to the other side where the trees began again. Kneeling to make himself small and unobtrusive, his keen eyes searched the clearing for the twitch and jump of game. But it was empty. Disappointed, he eased his hold on his now-strung bow and had just begun to get to his feet when a glint of gold like the flash of metal in sunlight attracted his eye.

In the pine shadows to the left of his position, something shifted. Not a deer, it was too narrow and walked upright. But Aragorn continued to watch it, strangely fascinated. It did not come any closer to him, its pace furtive as it brushed thigh-length bracken aside without any real sound of its own. Then it broke from the trees into the sunlight.

Aragorn caught his breath.

There, not fifty paces away, an elf emerged from the forest edge.

If he hadn't known better, he would have thought it was Haldir. But his upbringing served him well again. He noticed little differences that no other human would have had they dared venture close enough to look. He was as tall as the elf captain and his forearms possessed the lean, wiry strength of a born hunter. The cloak that swept from his shoulders might once have been dyed grey but long seasons and much wear had turned it an almost russet color. Golden hair clipped loosely back spilled over a quiver of brown arrows though the elf did not carry a bow. Instead, a knife swung from the back of his belt.

The elf didn't seem to notice him and took off around the tree fringe with a long, even strides, quick but unhurried. Passing within five yards of the ranger's position, he turned suddenly and vanished into the trees on the right.

Letting out a shaky breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, Aragorn crawled backwards, still half-crouched. Only when he had put a screen of trees between himself and the meadow did he dare straighten. He sighed and wiped a trickle of sweat from his temple as he turned.

The elf smiled at him.

Perched on a fallen log, he sat, one ankle resting on the thigh of the other. He was very still. In his lap, he cradled the unsheathed knife which glittered despite a rusty stain near the hilt. It was a beautiful intricate weapon, magnificently crafted and sharp as an iced-over river.

Alarm bells went off in Aragorn's head but he couldn't move for shock. He stood there with his boots frozen to the ground, gazing up into the elf's face, all but the lower half veiled by the hood.

The elf stared back in return, considering rather than menacing as he appraised the young man. This was the one who had escaped him in the inn by virtue of sleep. He liked them better awake and was glad he had spared the boy. And yet, something about this one in especial felt strange. He was…different from the others- those cowards who pleaded for their lives before he snuffed them out. This one did not run. He was almost unafraid… almost, but not quite. A sheen of sweat glittered at his temples and his eyes were wide. But he stayed where he was. The elf came dangerously close to admiring him for his bravery. He hadn't had a man linger this long in his presence for centuries. Alive, anyway.

Feeling surged back into Aragorn's legs and he staggered backward, his bow clenched in one hand though he was too close to use it. He wasn't sure what he was going to do had he a useful weapon anyway. Killing an elf went against everything he had ever been taught and as much as Carlóme said this rogue was to be despised and hunted down, he found himself intrigued by the thoughtful, mercurial gaze seeking his from under the shadows.

With a supple movement the elf slipped from the fallen log and paced a little closer, his steps as fluid as a stalking cat. The rogue was looking at him strangely, head canted to one side as though trying to remember something. But the knife glinted in his hand.

Aragorn held his hands out, palms up, showing the elf he was unarmed as he tried to circle away. He had to get back to camp. Warn the others. He hadn't come here to fight.

The elf stepped to the right, smoothly intercepting his avenue of escape. Just that. No closer, just one sidestep to keep him from getting past. With an icy ripple, Aragorn realized, the elf was…playing with him. A soft, condescending smile touched those pale lips.

Aragorn knew the elf could hear his heart hammering.

Suddenly, the rogue's head whipped to one side, staring in the direction of the meadow. Aragorn, sensing a deliberate deception, did not follow his gaze and instead took a furtive step back. He knew it was futile- as fast as he was he couldn't possibly hope to outrun the elf. But the rogue didn't look at him; the knife went lax. Then to Aragorn's shock and bewilderment, he stepped back.

Incredibly, impossibly, he was retreating. Step by back step, quicker now that whatever he sensed drew closer. Guardedness but not fear burned in his invisible eyes and for a split second they lingered on the white-faced human, searing him into memory. Spinning about, he plunged into the trees and within seconds was gone as fast as smoke. Aragorn stared, confused and so weak with astonishment he could only lean against a tree trunk in thanks. But why run? There was no one around here for miles. Nobody would have heard or seen a thing had the elf decided to gut him like a freshly slaughtered deer. He was still pondering that when something slammed into his back and knocked him off his feet.

"It's been too long."

"Just relax and sit down, will you? Your pacing about like a frantic kitten isn't going to bring him back any faster."

Haldir ignored Carlóme's snide remark and glanced up at the sun for the third time in the last half a minute. It had dipped dangerously past the appointed hour and Aragorn still hadn't returned. Normally he wouldn't put it past the ranger to delay on purpose just to prove his independence but with the present situation…If he had, the elf captain was going to do more than cuff his skull in when he found him again.

His cracked rib protested as he crouched and picked up his saber. He had taken to not carrying it around the camp when it made the women nervous but he couldn't just stand here and wait for Aragorn to show up. If he did.

"Where do you think you're going?" Carlóme asked, throwing off her blanket and snatching up her knife.

"I am going to find Strider," he said with deliberate enunciation that barely masked his growing impatience.

"Then I'm going with you."

"I don't have time to wait for you," he was already striding away towards the stream. "And it would be better for you to stay anyway, the camp needs to be guarded."

Carlóme's hand fastened on his upper arm and tugged him back. The dark woman's eyes blazed into his face. "You think I'm going to let you go anywhere, elf? Despite what you think, you aren't free yet. What makes you think I'm going to let you just saunter off wherever you please. I still don't trust you."

"That is your problem, not mine," the elf said lightly, staring at her hand on his arm.

She jerked it away but her scowl had not lessened. "I like it better when I can keep an eye on you. Don't worry, I won't slow you down. Just give me a minute, I'll wake Zaren. He can guard the camp while we're gone." Keeping her eyes on him to make sure he didn't try to slip away unnoticed, she roused her companion quickly and just as quickly stalked past him towards the stream, throwing over her shoulder,

"You coming, elf? You got to keep up!"

Pressing his lips together so hard they whitened, Haldir hurried after her.

Aragorn rolled onto his side as he hit the ground. This time the knife was in his hand before he rose. He had a brief glimpse of torn clothes with disturbingly darker spots spattering the collar and shirtfront before the ragged frame leapt away from him and let him stand. His attacker was a man, thin, unkempt and feral-eyed. But he was unarmed and reeled away from the knife, his hands thrown up as though to protect his throat when Aragorn stood.

The ranger made no further move towards him, his own chest heaving with surprise and adrenaline. "What are you doing? Why did you attack me?"

For the first time, the man's thin-colored eyes focused from the knife to his face. "You're not him." His voice cracked with mingled fear and frustration.

"No," the ranger said, not sure what the other was talking about.

The man's arms trembled uncertainly and his eyes raked the tree trunks as though to rend them all to pieces with just a glance. But whatever he had hoped to find, he didn't and at last he gave in, covering his face with a forearm as he leaned his weight against the tree previously occupied by the now completely bewildered ranger.

"Are-are you hurt?" Aragorn ventured after a strained silence, gazing hard at the speckled drops on the man's shirt. "Do you need help?"

The man glanced down at himself and his face crumpled as though he were about to cry. "No…uh, I'm not. It-it's my friend…He-" The man shook his head hard and ground his palms against his eyes. "He's bad hurt. I was chasing who got him…but he got away from me."

"I have some skill in healing," Aragorn offered, sheathing his weapon. "Take me to him."

Their supplies were woefully inadequate. Aragorn barely glanced at the pitiful herb pile as he knelt beside the sweat-soaked man. "I need warm water and any bandages or rags you have," he ordered more to give the man still standing something to do than for any real purpose. Water and rags would do little good now.

The wounded man lay on his right side, covered with a stained wool blanket. When Aragorn peeled it back, he let out a low hiss of sympathy. Whoever this man was, he had obviously been through hell. His back was a mess, slashed and exposed to the chill air. They had been cleaned but not very well and swelling around the injuries hinted at infection. The slashes were long and straight, thick on the shoulders and tapering at the hips. Aragorn bent close, ignoring the sickly sour stench of sweat, pus and fear.

"They look like…lashes. This man was whipped." Aragorn frowned, at once thoughtful and disgusted. He looked at the other who had said his name was Yyrin. "Where did you find him?"

"He found me." By bits and broken pieces, the story came out. The man, Ral, had been a laborer taking the odd job from a few outlying farms that still let their men go out at night to gather the sheep. The next morning, the master husbandman had found his beasts strolling down the country lane and Ral nowhere in sight. Fearing the worst, he sent Yyrin to go up into the woods with four or five others to search for him who scoffed at rumors of the "ghost" that lived there and preyed on man flesh. They discovered the truth of the rumor all too well. After the loss of two of their companions, the third had ducked out and gone back. Alone, Yyrin had continued to search for two days without any luck or mishap.

"I found Ral by the stream, crawling for the water. I brought him back here just yesterday morning. He hasn't said a word. I just…" Yyrin shook his head, unable to explain himself as he raked a frustrated and shaking hand through his hair. "Anyway, I went off to the stream this morning and I heard shouts coming from our camp and I ran back. I found a…demon standing over Ral with a knife. He was…Well, I tried to grab him but he slipped right out of my hands like smoke," Yyrin rolled up his sleeve to reveal a messily wrapped bandage on one arm. "Think I surprised him or I would have gotten it to."

Yyrin pointed towards his wounded friend, indicating the dirt and blood-crusted bandage wrapping one side of Ral's face. "The devil did that-cut out his eye," Aragorn's onetime attacker told him, his fury and fear rekindled. "Can you do anything for him?"

The ranger's mouth set in a straight, narrow line as he carefully washed the blood and dried bank mud off. The wounds were bad. Aragorn knew it at a glance. "You were fortunate- he would have killed you too."

"Do you think we can catch him?" the man asked, his eyes wide and frightened as though he half-hoped the ranger would tell him such a feat was impossible.

"Not tonight. Not with your friend like this," Aragorn said as the wounded man gave a quiet sob.

"Demon eyes," Yyrin shook his head and sank to the ground beside his friend's head, not looking at him or seeming to hear his pained gasps. "I swear I've never looked evil in the face before now."

The words sent a chill down Aragorn's spine that had nothing to do with the wind.

They both jumped as an irritated voice swept out of the shadows. "So, here you are."

Aragorn spun on his heels as Haldir strode towards him, his face white and furious. "Did I not say 'an hour?' What happened to 'an hour'? I can't leave you for less than that before you-"

"Haldir, you're making a scene," the young ranger interrupted with impressive calm.

"And you are a fool," the elf captain spat back, not to be pacified. "What happened?"

Yyrin's face went white and he gaped, sitting down hard on a stump, his eyes fixed on the elf. "You're him."

"Not the one that hurt your friend," Aragorn interjected over his shoulder, still trying to stare down the irate marchwarden who looked ready to breathe fire. "He's with our company. We're hunting the one who did."

"You're crazy. Nobody can catch that demon."

"We will," Until now, Carlóme had kept herself back. Her quick obsidian eyes flickered from the ranger to the wounded man. "What happened here?"

Knowing full well he would have to give a full account to Haldir later, the ranger knelt by Ral's head. "He's hurt. Badly." In brief, he explained what Yyrin had told him.

Carlóme cursed under her breath and even Haldir did not rebuke him again.

Haldir squatted beside the ranger and examined the man whose single eye widened frightfully under the elf's gaze but he didn't move. The marchwarden's head tilted slightly as he examined one of the man's hands which stuck out under the edge of the blanket. Nudging the cloth aside, he touched the thin wrist, the purplish, oddly twisted fingers.

"This man was tortured."

Aragorn scooted instantly over to him. "What?"

"Look at his wrists. He was tied to something," Haldir pointed to the bruising circling over the man's skin. "And his fingers broken if I'm not mistaken."

"You know a lot about such bruises, elf?" Carlóme jumped in.

Haldir ignored her. Something was very wrong here. He glanced from the whiplike slashes that reminded him all too much of Caleb's body to his wrists and back again. That strange uneasiness he'd felt at the inn tingled at the back of his scalp. Like an unreachable itch, the feeling wouldn't go away. But he still couldn't tell what it was. He dropped the man's wrist and shook his head, carefully speaking to Aragorn in elvish so as not to panic the other man who was watching them with hungry, pleading eyes.

"Whatever hit him, damaged him thoroughly. He's dying. But there will be a great deal of pain before the end."

"We do not know that for certain," Aragorn replied just as swiftly. "We can bind the slashes. I have some salve in my pack. We can't do anything about the eye but I can stop the infections from…" He trailed away as Haldir slowly shook his head and leaning forward parted the man's clothes and coverings until he revealed a small puncture just under the man's rib cage; it had bled little but a strange sucking noise came from it now along with a froth of fresh, bubbly blood.

"I was listening to his breathing but I wasn't sure…until now."

"A punctured lung," Aragorn hissed in disbelief, sitting back on his heels. What monster would condemn a man to such a slow agonizing death?

"What's that?" Carlóme resented being left out and shouldered her way back into the conversation.

Aragorn explained to Yyrin and the dark woman turned fierce, distrustful eyes on Haldir. "How did you know to look for it?"

During the Last Alliance, the Galadhrim had used just such a technique to down orcs swiftly in the melee of battle without having to take the precious seconds to kill them. The Lórien captain himself had been proficiently taught that very move and others like it until the end of the War illegalized those tactics. But he wasn't about to tell her that. "I have been around enough wounds to know."

The injured man began to toss his head in agony, his face white and eyes screwed shut as he heaved in shallow breaths that would never give him enough air. Yyrin watched him, hands folded against his chin as though praying.

"I'll do it," the dark woman said, drawing her knife and kneeling down.

Yyrin raised his head out of his hands, his neck suddenly stiff as he stared from one grim face to the other. "What are you talking about? What do you mean? Do what?"

Aragorn bit his lip and rested a comforting hand on the man's shoulder. "Your friend's wounds are very grievous. There's no help for him out here, no time. It will only cause him more pain…"

At first Yyrin didn't seem to hear him though his muscles began to tremble all over. He shook his head hard as though he could shake out the truth behind the words. "No… no, there's got to be something…something you can do…We can make a stretcher! Don't you have salves and things…?"

"Salves won't help him now."

The bleeding man shook his head slowly, the power of speech beyond him as he slowly asphyxiated. But his remaining eye gaped wide. Haldir had seen that look before in the eyes of those who still had breath enough to plead for the mercy of death.

"It would be better," he said, softly. His eyes seemed distant, detached as he stared at something beyond the dying man, his face full of conflict. No one moved or spoke. "You won't be able to do it quick enough with that." He said at last, nodding to Carlóme's small knife.

"I won't let you," Yyrin wrestled away from Aragorn and planted himself in front of his friend. "He needs help! Just give him something to take the edge off the pain…that's all…I'll carry him down if I have to."

"You fool," Carlóme snarled though her own face twisted as though she'd swallowed something unspeakably bitter. "Can't you see he's as good as dead? But I promise you, we'll find the monster that got him and put paid to him- I can promise you that if it's the last oath I make."

Haldir drew his saber.

Aragorn walked Yyrin out of sight, gripping his shoulder with perhaps more force than necessary. They stayed there with their backs to the clearing, waiting in agonizing silence. Aragorn squeezed his eyes shut tight, wishing Haldir would hurry up and get it over with. He was wishing so hard he almost missed it. Haldir shifted his weight and faintly, he heard a sharp, sudden gasp. Then silence rolled over them in thick waves. Yyrin shuddered under his hand.

All of them were shaken. Carlóme stared at the dead man with emptiness in her eyes, her hands white-knuckled on her ornate knife.

Releasing Yyrin who sank as one dead himself beside the body, Aragorn searched out his friend and found him leaning against a tree, wiping his sword lame clean. His face, what little the young man could see of it through the shadows, was immobile, a frozen mask of marble that divulged nothing of the thought behind it.

"You all right?" he asked, his voice sounded hoarse and raw even to his own ears.

The elf didn't look up. Aragorn didn't think he'd even heard.

Feeling the need to do something - anything - Aragorn walked back into the clearing. Together he, Carlóme and Yyrin chipped a shallow grave in the permafrost and buried Ral near the bank of the stream. The dark woman, taking pity on the grieving man, invited him to join her band for at least a hot supper if nothing else. Empty-eyed, he nodded.

Once Yyrin was settled and sleeping, Carlóme told her band briefly what happened. Aragorn heard without listening, his mind and stomach churning with unease as he sat with his back against a boulder that retained a bit of the sun's warmth. Brenn lay full-length beside him, staring up through the bare canopy of leaves and straining attentively for the rise and fall of his leader's voice.

Aragorn followed his gaze, his breath misting as he searched for the stars. There were none out tonight or maybe the campfire was too bright to see properly. A black void opened above his head, a silent and empty vacuum. Swiftly, the ranger pulled his eyes earthward and glanced at the boy sprawled at his side.

"Why don't you go off to bed?" he nudged Brenn. The lad didn't need to hear all this. Typically, he protested but a stern look from both the older ranger and Zaren sent him, complaining loudly, off to sleep.

Strider watched him kick his bedroll out over the ground and burrow under the covers for warmth without removing his boots. The fond smile faded, however, as he contemplated the dark water flowing past him. Ral would never have to unroll a bedroll again. Somehow the presence of death was a thing Aragorn could never get used to. Maybe being raised among beings that never acknowledged it, he didn't expect death to touch everything else. It made him feel cold, empty and very much aware of his own short life. He needed to get up and do something but there was nothing to do tonight anyway.

A sharp glint of gold caught his eye like a spark suddenly doused. It flitted across the stream a few yards down. Even at this distance, he recognized it and leapt to his feet.

"Where have you been?" he demanded, running down to meet him as Haldir stepped onto the bank, his hood thrown back and cloak hem dripping.

The elf captain eyed him with something akin to reproach as he stepped past him up the muddy bank. "So, it's your turn to be worried. How does that feel?" he said, evading the question.

"Hey," the ranger grasped the back of his cloak, worried. "Where did you go?"

"Why does everyone insist on physical restraint if they want my attention?" Haldir glanced pointedly at the man's hand until it dropped from his garment. "When the woman and I looked for you, we followed your trail to a meadow. I saw something there I wanted to find again."

"A little less cryptic?" Aragorn prompted, repulsing the shudder at the memory of the meadow. The excitement of the night had driven his encounter with the rogue elf clear out of his mind until now.

But Haldir wasn't paying attention, his gaze focused on Carlóme's form, silhouetted against the fire. She was retelling Kari and a few of the other stronger-stomached women the events of the night in more detail now that the distraught man and her young charge could no longer hear.

"-watched his face the whole time. Never even flinched when he brought the blade down even though the guy was writhing, trying to rip it out of his heart. Bet you enjoyed that, didn't you, elf?" she spat the sobriquet as though it were the foulest curse word in her vocabulary. Her voice dropped as she faced him, her tangled black hair making her somehow more threatening. She stepped in close, her voice dropping to a hoarse purr. "'Nearly killed me' you said under the harsari. It never lies. Men nearly killed you and you want revenge. Well, I don't care if they strapped you down and beat you, it doesn't excuse what you did."

A tiny grimace flickered across his face. But it was enough to catch her eye and her slow nod of sudden understanding made his blood run chill. "That's what it was, wasn't it? They beat you."

"Do not talk to him like that!" Aragorn couldn't believe the hypocrisy of this woman who had been willing enough to put a knife in the dying man herself. "He had no choice!"

The other women were silent, avid. Kari clutched Narturi's hands in her own and Miren, a vulpine-colored woman with a flask cradled against one hip, sat up, her gaze darting uneasily between her leader and the ranger. Saeryn alone was still, her gaze never leaving the elf captain's rigid form.

Haldir made no move to defend himself, his face white and eyes staring into the dark trees unseeingly. Every muscle in his body locked as though by sheer will alone he could turn himself to marble, insensate and cold. At that second, he wished it were so.

Zaren laid a hand on her tense shoulder. "Car, come on. Leave him alone, he did what he had to. What would any of the rest of us have done if we'd been close enough?"

"You would've killed him?" She turned on him incredulously, her eyes raking his face.

With a quick, sidelong glance at Haldir, the scarred man stared levelly at her. "With wounds like that in the middle of the wilderness, and a choice between hours of suffering and a sting before death…Yes. I would have."

Carlóme brushed past him, shaking her head as she stalked away from the fire to the farthest edge of the camp.

Haldir remained silent. He didn't know what to say to this strange man who, until hours ago, had been his enemy.

Zaren shrugged, glancing back as the rustling faded to sullen silence. "Don't mind her, elf. She's bad-tempered when she doesn't get any cuddle."

Haldir had winced at the epithet. But coming from him it didn't sound so much an insult. "You'll attend to that then."

The man flushed but a sly grin strained the edges of his neck scar as he fluttered his fingers in goodnight to Strider and Brenn who was listening covertly from under his blankets. The others were still watching them, varied looks of interest and hostility in their fire-bathed faces.

"She had no right to talk to you like that," Aragorn said, his hands still curled into tight balls at his sides. "If she dares-"

The marchwarden only shook his head but it was enough to silence the ranger's threats. A wave of concern washed away the lingering exasperation as he saw the strangely vacant expression in his friend's eyes as he drew away. "Do you want to talk?"

"Goodnight, Estel," Haldir was already striding out of the camp, the desperation in his movements nearly palpable. Aragorn could only stare helplessly at his back as the elf slipped out of the fire's gaze and into the silent, unquestioning darkness.


	5. Twists and Turns

Perspiration beaded and dripped down his jawline. A stitch knifing beneath his ribcage, he breathed in deeply through his nostrils and out again, the air frigid and searing against his lungs as he rested against solid bark, its wide girth encompassing him completely as he waited for the throbbing pulse in his neck to recede.

His saber hilt prodded him. With a sudden bright urgency, he ripped it from his hip and flung it away, belt and sword, not caring that it clattered loudly against a tree trunk. Tearing his gaze from the earth, he swiped sweat out of his eyes and searched for the stars. Only a pale, ghostly flicker peeked through the withered leaves rustling in an icy breeze he had not yet begun to feel, one Ral would never feel again.

A shudder not of cold gripped the elf as a dark image of cold, rotting hands floated before his treacherous mind, pale fingers, white as bone, flexed as though waiting to grip him and crush him. It was only when they twitched, startling him that he realized they were his own, sitting upturned on his lap. He ran them briskly over his face, casting a glare at the offending, scythe-shaped shadow barely visible in the darkness.

Tonight had been a clean kill. His saber knew that kind of work well. The man had been deathly wounded- what else could he have done?

Let the woman do it. Let Estel do it. Anyone but himself. What on earth had possessed him to think he could get away with something like that and not be forced to remember? He had tried so hard not to.

Tried to block out the countless nights when three warriors of Lothlórien slipped from their burned and grieving forest like moon shadows, moon shadows of grief and rage, driving them to do the unthinkable. Swords flashed against the darkness of his closed eyelids, gouts of blood reflected with the vividness of afterimages. Shapes writhed on the tips of swords just as that man he had killed this night. But Haldir and death both proved the stronger every time. And his self-revulsion afterwards. Every time.

As he had not allowed himself in years, he unbuttoned his collar and slid chilled fingers over the slightly raised mark stretching across his collarbone, thinning at his shoulder. He was already remembering everything he had sought not to; one more would make no difference tonight. Aragorn had asked him about it once. Scars usually did not fail to heal without a mark on elven bodies. Normal scars. Haldir had never told him how he got it- or more importantly who he had gotten it from.

"I'm sorry," he whispered though there was no one to hear him even if he knew who he spoke to.

He glanced up at the moon drifting through the interlacing pattern of branches which traced a dark lattice over his face like black veins. It was late and he had run far. It would take him all night to get back to camp.

Unbending stiff knees, he stooped and lifted the saber from the dead litter.

Late-clinging frost crackled under his boots as he walked sleepily alongside the streambed. All the branches sparkled with sleeves of diamond. But Aragorn took no notice of the austere beauty; it was too cold. Hunched deep in his greatcoat, he barely bristled at hearing Carlóme up ahead speculating loudly to the others if "the elf" had finally deserted. Like Aragorn, Yyrin didn't pay her any attention and walked at the rear, empty eyes directed downward. Beside him Narturi scooped up his hand in hers though he didn't seem to notice.

Aragorn doubted he would notice anything at all unless his friend's killer somehow magically appeared right in front of him. Looking at him, he couldn't help remembering Ral's vivid injuries and the one who had put them there. Pushing aside recollections compounded by worry for Haldir, he tried instead to get into the killer's mind. Maybe if they could understand what he was after, they could think of a way to outmaneuver him. But all they had so far was a trail of cold bodies.

"Strider, get up here. We need you to show us the spot."

Carefully refraining from voicing his annoyance at the order, Aragorn sped up his pace until he passed the dark woman and her male comrade, casting about for the deer trail he had followed yesterday. His own fresher tracks were easy enough to find and they soon made it through the grove of thick pine trees, pausing on the edge of the meadow.

Like the first time, it was empty but uneasiness squeezed Aragorn's spine as he stepped from the shelter of the trees into full sunlight. Wintry rays shimmered as the sun streaked the lifting mist with gold and every grass blade with alive and vibrating shadows around the company. It would have been very beautiful had the circumstances not felt so grim.

"There!" quick-eyed, Brenn had spotted something. Without waiting for his leader's command, he plunged forward.

"Brenn, get back here!" Zaren snarled, starting forward to snatch his cloak. But Brenn dodged out of his reach and vanished into the tall grass. The older man cursed.

Aragorn and Carlóme instantly sprang after him. But Brenn was fast and had almost made it to the other side of the meadow before he slowed, almost but not quite stopping as though filled with sudden uncertainty.

The bottom dropped out of Aragorn's stomach as he saw the glint of golden hair under the umbrage of an ash tree.

"Brenn!" he called in a hoarse croak, hoping to distract the elf.

They both turned at the sound of his voice and Aragorn's breath came out in a fierce, smoky rush as the elf stepped into the sunlight to meet the boy.

"Haldir." His mind reeled first with relief then with questions: Where had he been? Why had he left? What had haunted him last night that seemed so deeply buried now? Carlóme's tirade had troubled the ranger, even more so when his friend had not bothered to deny her claims. Aragorn knew at the very bottom of his heart that Haldir was guiltless of the murderous accusations she heaped on him.

But he was also not so naïve as to believe that after a few weeks of travel, the elf would trust him with his uttermost confidences. He knew there were things in Haldir's past he would not discuss willingly- even if pressed.

A dark blur elbowed him aside and cuffed Brenn soundly.

"You brainless idiot!" Carlóme hissed, furious, her fingers digging into the scruff of Brenn's neck. "How many times have I told you not to rush into things until you know what you're facing?"

The sandy-haired youth wrenched his collar free, scowling at her. "I knew it was him the whole time. Don't tell me what to do."

"That's exactly my point. And as long as you're with me, you'll do as I say." Carlóme's thunderous glare silenced the argument on the boy's lips though the corners turned down sullenly. The tawny woman's eyes flashed over his shoulder to the elf. "Can you just not handle someone telling you the truth, elf? Things get uncomfortable, so you take off?"

Haldir was paying little attention to her and still watching Brenn, a concerned frown slanting his eyebrows until Aragorn came up beside him.

Acutely aware of his torn clothes and haggard appearance, the elf quickly cast about for another subject. "This is where you found him?"

Zaren and the rest of the group caught up with them as Aragorn pointed out the course he had seen the rogue take the day before.

Brenn winked at the older man who chucked him under the chin and grinned at the sight of his leader's ruffled feathers.

"You trying to get killed?"

The boy shrugged, rolling his eyes. "Didn't get cut did I?"

"Next time you may not be so lucky," Kari growled darkly, hands akimbo as she surveyed the youth with fondness and aggravation.

"It's too open here." Aragorn said, his eyes raking the trees. "I saw him closer to the trees."

Leading, he picked his way back across the clearing, his spine tingling the whole way. Even when they were safe under bare cover, he still didn't feel at ease and kept looking up as though expecting to see the elven killer leering down at them from the branches.

Haldir seemed to be thinking along the same lines for he suddenly said, "You follow from the ground. I'll scout what I can from above."

Without another word, the elf touched lightly off the bole of the nearest trunk and launched himself into the air. Catching a branch above his head, he pulled his body up with all the ease and long practice of the Galadhrim and was soon out of sight.

"Like a squirrel in spring!" Zaren remarked, squinting upwards and shading his eyes with a hand. "What does he think he's going to find up there?"

Aragorn said nothing and cast about on the ground. He knew from experience with his brothers that elves were very good at hiding when they didn't want to be found but there were still signs that his keen eyes picked out. Something had pressed frozen dew from the grass tips. No mark of boot or hand did he find, no broken branches or bent ferns but the drops shaken from the plants led him onward as though on a clear path.

He crouched and pressed his fingertips against the permafrost lightly, the cool, dry scent of iced earth in his nostrils. Carlóme and the group waited impatiently behind him but he tuned them out, remembering his mother's careful words before he rode with the rangers. All the earth speaks, my son, you just have to learn how to listen.

He took a deep breath and listened.

The birches around them hissed but not in a breeze. They whispered and though his human ears could not discern words, he knew they were warning him: Stay away, be gone, go back…We can't, Aragorn thought desperately. His fingertips danced over a patch of grass near a curling witch hazel. Though his eyes saw nothing, he felt the earth curve in the shape of a heel. Someone had passed this way. Elated, he moved forward, almost on hands and knees, feeling his way forward until he found another like print though he still saw nothing to indicate it should be there.

The prints were at least as old as last night for the ground hadn't quite refrozen around them yet. Eagerly, his eyes darted over the invisible trail as he followed alongside, careful not to disturb the signs. Beneath an overhanging arch of an oak, they vanished.

Disappointed, Aragorn cast about, trying to pick it up again and found himself staring at a pair of boots. Above them, a strip of bloodstained linen dangled in front of his nose and forced him to raise his head. He plucked it out of Haldir's hand and stared first at it then the bearer questioningly.

The elf captain's mouth was set in a hard line, briefly meeting Carlóme's challenging eyes. "He was here. But he's taken to the trees to drive off pursuers. He knows he's being followed."

Aragorn fingered the rag thoughtfully, avoiding the dark stains. It looked like a fragment of Ral's clothing. Something the killer had used to wipe his hands. "At least we know he came this way though we haven't seen him yet," he dropped the grisly thing, letting it twist away in a current.

"And we will have to be doubly careful to keep it that way," Haldir said almost to himself as he stared up at the swaying boughs.

"You might be able to last a frigid night out here, elf, but my women won't. It's too cold. We'll find shelter for the night, pick up the trail tomorrow."

Haldir's breath frosted the air as he sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, the woman was right. They wouldn't be able to blunder around in the dark for much longer especially with the temperature dropping as much as it was. He didn't feel it but if the peculiar shade of plum Aragorn's lips were currently turning was anything to go by, it must be fairly cold. Thick clouds had swallowed up the bright afternoon sunshine some hours ago.

"You know this country, lady. What is near?" he asked with a slight incline of his head, making at least an attempt to be civil.

Carlóme shouldered her way past him, her hood drawn tight up over her black head and her hands shoved unceremoniously into thick furred gloves. She pointed slightly east where the trees glided down into a shallow dell before climbing back up towards the mountains. Large walls and shelves of rock jutted out of the ground like cracked stair steps in the spaces between the trunks. "There are a set of caves that way. They'll at least give us a bit of shelter from this wind."

Pine trees marched right up almost to the first rock edges; one or two aspiring saplings even poked up between them. Aragorn looked up at the tumbled boulders and clefts of mossy limestone which glimmered like bone among the dark roots and branches. A series of black holes only seven or eight feet across stared out at them like empty eye sockets. They took the lowest one.

After picketing the horses below where grazing was better, the group clambered up the lichen-spotted rocks and sat or stood around the mouths while Zaren, Carlóme and Saeryn explored the depths in case of unexpected surprises. The cave didn't go very far back but it would fit all of them comfortably enough without the horses.

Haldir sniffed the moist air inside the entrance once and recoiled with a sleeve pressed across his face, his eyes narrowing at the dark woman. "Orc. You've brought us to an orc hole."

"Not anymore," Carlóme grinned, shoving back her hood and leaning against a spiny ledge. "They must be out tormenting some other poor souls. This is a good place. It'll be warm enough once we get a fire going."

"What if they come back?" Zaren ventured, loath to raise his leader's temper by agreeing with the elf.

But Carlóme seemed in an unusually tolerant humor- maybe because they had found a trail at last. "We'll be ready for them," she tilted her head slightly towards the disgruntled solider and made a sweeping gesture towards the mouth of the cave. "Elf, first watch?"

For once, Haldir didn't argue. The stench alone made his stomach roil though the others didn't seem the least perturbed, laughing and joking as they unloaded the horses. Aragorn paused before him, his bedroll and Maethor's tack slung over one shoulder. The elf captain met the man's gaze and knew questions lurked behind those concerned eyes but he didn't want to answer them right at the moment.

He jerked his head towards the black pit where Zaren was scraping together a pile of tinder. "Go settle in. I'll still be here."

The ranger opened his mouth then abruptly shut it and slipped inside out of the cold.

As the night sky deepened from pale to inky blue, a warm glow sprang up within the cave, splintering redly on the uneven walls. The aroma of roasted meat reminded Haldir he hadn't eaten all day but he ignored the hunger pangs, still alert for danger. That same uneasiness that hadn't left him since the inn prodded more insistently now that it was dark. Below he could Lintedal shifting restlessly in the grass, neighing softly to Maethor.

"Cold enough, elf?" Carlóme called from inside.

Haldir almost caught himself smiling. Indeed, it was a fine night if you didn't feel the cold. The pines rocked in a seductive dance below, the furthest tips vanishing one by one as the night grew steadily deeper; and the clouds shifted to reveal a night filled with stars.

Muttering about frostbite, with a thick, wool cloak wrapped closely about his shoulders, Zaren came out an hour later to relieve him though the man stationed himself as near the fire as he could get while still being able to look out over the ledge.

Aragorn had saved some meat for him and they talked quietly while he ate, puzzling over the day's findings but too tired to delve into anything more serious. The women talked softly among themselves and readied for sleep.

"Hey, Car," Zaren called suddenly. "I hope you're ready, 'cause they're coming back."

The dark woman leapt lithely to her feet and crouched at the scarred man's side. "Show me."

He pointed along the side of their ledge where smoother rocks formed a rough pathway that branched away from the sylvan road they had taken.

"Just one?" Carlóme frowned, almost disappointed. "That's it?"

"Probably part of a larger raiding party. They must've met some bad luck," Zaren eyed the stumbling creature whose muttered curses could be heard even at this distance. "Good news for us at any rate if he's the only one left alive."

"Just wait for it to come to us then."

A shrill wail of terror tore up the rocks towards them. Haldir felt his blood run chill as he recognized it at the same time Carlóme and Zaren went white-faced.

"Brenn!"

The lad had been out searching for more dead wood to add to the dwindling fire. Hindered by an armful of logs, the creature was on top of him before he'd even seen it.

Carlóme was in motion in seconds, ripping the knife from its hilt as she plunged into the darkness.

But Haldir was faster.

His boot knife glittered as it spun through the air and thocked solidly into the orc's side, throwing it off the trembling lad who pulled himself up as fast as he could, blood trickling from a thin cut on his chin where a knotted elbow had clipped his mouth.

The dark woman crouched beside him and lifted him to his feet, away from the orc. "You all right? Brenn, talk to me! You all right?" She fingered the blood on his face but he didn't answer, his gaze darting to the filthy creature with only a hilt protruding from its abdomen. Carlóme followed his gaze.

"Nice toss, elf. Who taught you to sling a knife like that?"

"A commanding officer of mine. He collected such weapons." Haldir bent to retrieve his blade and the orc's veiny eyelids flickered.

Surprising new admiration glinted in the huntswoman's eyes as she nodded approvingly. Almost absently she raked a hand through Brenn's sandy shoulder-length tangle as though to reassure herself he was still there.

The orc sprawled against the rocks was not yet dead though going fast. Frothy, ichor-choked sounds bubbled out of a collapsed lung and its yellow eyes burned with the anticipation of death. The slit-like pupils constricted as they narrowed on the tall elf silhouetted against the night sky.

"So… come to finish off the last of us, eh?" it slurred, blood dribbling from between its lips.

Carlóme knelt by it in a split second. "What? You saw him before? Where?"

"Left the leavings for us on occasion," the orc chuckled. "Soft and tender they were, a little stale. But he wouldn't give us the live ones…killed us who tried…"

"Where?"

"It lies," Haldir snatched his weapon free, twisting as he did so to disentangle it from the ribs.

"Wait." She grabbed his wrist to no avail. The orc's eyes rolled up into its gaunt skull and it gave a long, rippling shudder before falling still.

Carlóme stared at the body then frowned and fingered something hidden by the dark creature's stained and bloodied tunic which the elf's knife had ripped aside. "There's a shaft here. It was hit with an arrow- in the back too. Would explain why it died so fast."

"Do you have the other half?" Haldir asked unexpectedly.

The Harad searched and plucked the feathered shaft out of the creature's curled, stiffening hand. "He must just have broken it off when you got him. Right in the ribs too- punctured a lung I don't doubt." The dark woman smiled grimly over her shoulder as she handed it to him. "So, do all elves know tricks like that or just you?"

Stooping, he snatched the arrow half from her hand and whirled on his heel without a backward glance, dodging around Zaren and Aragorn who had drawn their blades and rushed out after them.

They left the orc body where it lay and returned to the cave, careful to stoke up the fire to discourage any other comers. The floor though cold was smooth and shelves lined the walls which the women had lined with extra blankets and groundsheets. Carlóme lay down near the back with Zaren while the others arranged themselves in the most comfortable niches they could find. A narrow hole in the ceiling kept smoke from asphyxiating the occupants and let in a little outside light.

Haldir's jaw tightened as the thread slipped out of the eye again. A particularly vengeful branch had slashed a long tear in his tunic the night before and dexterous though he was with the finer points of a sword, needlepoint had always eluded him. He wished Rameil were here- his second was fairly clever with stitches- and not just ones in skin.

After listening to him curse with increasing fluency in several languages she didn't even recognize, Saeryn abruptly rolled over and snatched the garment out of his hands. "For goodness' sake, Master Elf, let me do it. You'd bleed yourself dry trying to master a woman's work." She sat up and after retying the knot, set to making neat, small stitches that even Rameil would have been hard-pressed to match.

He watched her light fingers in stunned admiration for a full two minutes before remembering his manners. "Thank you."

She nodded curtly without looking up. "All the girls are grateful for what you did for Brenn. Don't know what we'd do if we lost him."

The elf shook his head and draped his elbows over his bent knees; he didn't expect any praise for doing his job. Saeryn's fingers as cracked and dry as they were, moved fast and with great skill. In minutes, she bit off the string after the end knot and handed the tunic back to him.

Haldir admired her handiwork, running his fingers over the threads. The stitching was good and strong, the string almost invisible against the grey cloth.

"That's a nasty scar," she remarked as he slipped it back over his head.

The marchwarden didn't look but he knew which scar she meant.

"How did you get it?" she asked then glanced into his face. A sympathetic smile crinkled the youthful corners of her eyes. "Still painful?"

"In a manner of speaking."

She pulled her blanket back over her legs. "I guess we all have scars don't we? Some we'd rather not share with others."

"What is yours?" he asked before he could stop himself. She only smiled and curled up on her side with her back to him.

The camp, exhausted after the hard, eager day of travel, had dwindled into steady quiet. Brenn and Zaren had gathered enough dead wood to keep it burning all through the night and the cave was now cozy with warmth. It wasn't long before they dropped off, one by one, forgetting in their fatigue to set a watch. Haldir stayed awake for a while, running his fingers up and down the arrow's feathery veins, the rustling soft in the silence.

"Captain."

Haldir looked up. Brenn's brilliant green eyes watched him, his head barely peeking out of a veritable pile of skins and cloaks. The cut on his chin had been cleaned though it still looked a bit inflamed.

"Brenn?" The elf prompted when he continued to stare.

"Look," Brenn scooted a little out of his makeshift cave, glancing towards the back to make sure Carlóme was not listening. "Thanks…for saving me today. I know Car appreciated it though she didn't say anything."

Haldir dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Go to sleep."

With a shy smile, the boy burrowed back into his little den like a badger at midwinter.

In the warm, sleep-filled darkness, Haldir finally let himself relax. Letting the arrow slip to the side, he unbuttoned his tunic collar and leaned back against the wall, pushing his pack into the small of his back. A few feet away Aragorn had stretched out with his face to the wall. His back rose and fell rhythmically though Haldir was never sure if he was actually sleeping or not.

The floor was uninviting and his still-healing rib made sleeping flat intolerable anyway. But around midnight, when the fire began to burn low and fill the cave with the tang of woodsmoke, he drifted into a troubled doze, his head resting against the wall.

Deciduous trees flickered overhead, their leaves the color of midsummer dappling fresh, vibrant light onto the emerald floor. Spotted shades swirled among the grasses bent by generations of dueling soundless feet. In their midst, Haldir spun in a short circle, sweeping outward with the sickle-scythe of his blade until it whistled in his ears, a fatal music.

His limbs alternated in patches of sun and shade as he moved seamlessly through the skills, their names ringing through his mind: Spine Sever… Air Stealer…Butcher's Block…Despite the ages since he'd last felt the need to perform them, his blade danced through them with a mind and memory of its own. At last, he slowed, letting his guard drop a little.

"Again."

The voice didn't surprise him but he did turn to it, automatically, yearningly. It was a voice he hadn't heard for nearly two thousand years- except in his dreams.

The tall elf who had spoken regarded him with stern eyes as green as the leaves, arms folded in the small of his back. Gold broidery glinted at his shoulders as he paced a few steps closer, his face oddly blurred around the edges as though Haldir viewed him through a veil.

"Again."

Obediently Haldir lifted his saber but paused, staring.

The living leaves above their heads began to curl at the edges, twist but no longer with the wind. Orange flickers like leaks sprang between the branches, devouring the green shoots as though they were old wood. Haldir looked to his captain, asking him what to do though he heard no sound from his lips. But his commander didn't move, eyes still intent on Haldir, ignoring the ash as it rained down, dusting the immaculate blue tunic with white-grey powder.

Behind him, a boy stepped between the chunks of charring branches that streamed down from above. The ashes drifted about his feet as he walked, his dark hair blowing in a nonexistent breeze. Haldir broke into a sweat, long delayed despite his exertions. The boy bore an uncanny resemblance to Aragorn but there were differences. This one was older than the youthful ranger only by a few years, his smile guarded and edged with war knowledge. In his hand, lay a green enameled brooch- one of the cloak clasps of Lórien which he extended to the elf soldier in friendship. Dark bruises ringed his throat beneath the gaping collar.

"Do it again, Lieutenant." His commander's voice rang in his ears.

The young man was within range of his blade, still smiling, despite the burning trees. His dark hair swept his cheeks and Haldir felt the sting of ash on his cheeks.

He brought the saber slashing up.

Haldir woke, chilled with sweat for a reason he could not remember.

White flakes whirled softly past the cave entrance, eddying in brief gusts of wind that whistled on the hollow rocks outside. Melting flurries puddled over the smooth floor. The fire had gone out and it was bone-freezingly cold in the cavern but Haldir didn't notice. In fact, all thought swept completely away as he stared at the mouth of the cave.

A tall form stood there, dressed in shadows. As hard as he stared at it, even his elven eyes could not penetrate the blackness that shrouded the unknown visitor's face. Careful to keep his eyes on it, he stretched one hand towards his sword but let it drop when the hood turned in his direction. The figure raised a pale, pale hand and beckoned to him.

If it was an apparition, it was a terribly solid one if weatherworn. Shoulders and hood dusted with frozen water, its raiment fell in folds of fine grey cloth, belted with black leather tooled with silver vines. Leather boots framed by a growing puddle protruded from under the cloak. A tendril of gold escaped the shadows of the hood and seemed to glimmer in the glow reflecting from the ground. Haldir sensed something fair beneath that hood, a familiarity in the stance and bearing that made his heart contract painfully.

Unease was screaming itself into full blown fear at the back of his mind now but he rose, his hand tightening and drawing the saber up with him as he did so. His companions still slept around him, safe, unharmed, alive. For now. The figure beckoned him again, still inexorably silent though a little more urgent. It stepped back from the mouth and vanished downslope.

Haldir hesitated, knowing how foolish it was to go off alone. But he couldn't chance waking Carlóme; she would kill the shadow before they got any answers. And Aragorn, the others…he had a duty to keep them safe didn't he? Leading the shadow away from them would do that. For a moment, his eyes rested on Brenn curled in his nest of blankets, sandy locks twitching with every exhale.

He plunged into the snow. The figure waited for him at the bottom. A crisp inch of snow carpeted the ground, concealing all behind a colorless veil except for the tips of grass. He trailed after the gliding shade which was always careful to keep in sight for it left no footprints in the snow. Weightless as Haldir's own were.

They crept around the base of the limestone caves, past the body of the dead orc, scarcely visible under its white shroud. He glanced at his companion, suspecting the death of the creature was somehow at its hands. The shaft's fletching had revealed the work of an elf- its unique spiraling in particular had startled him for it was the same style employed in his own arrows.

His ghostly companion said not a word, preceding him by enough to make attempted conversation or questions impossible. Haldir followed him cautiously, his eyes and steps alert for traps or ambushes. His hands soon froze on the hilt of his saber and he wondered how much further they had to go when his ghost suddenly darted between two ash trees and stopped.

Diffident, feeling exposed, Haldir slipped gingerly between the narrow gap and found himself poised at the edge of a glade. The shadow turned its faceless hood towards him.

"Who are you?" Haldir demanded, his voice clanging in his own ears after such silence.

But it did not answer or indeed even look at him. Instead, its invisible gaze slid over his shoulder.

Movement caught Haldir's eye and his head swiveled in time to see another figure glide out of the brush, russet-garbed and also cowled. The elf captain felt his heartbeat quicken.

There were two of them.


	6. Revenants and Revelations

Aragorn curled his shoulders inward and drew his knees closer to his chest as a current of cold air teased dark tendrils across his cheeks. The flat ground and merciless wind leeched the body heat right out of him. Finally he sat up and pulled on every piece of spare clothing, cloak and blanket he possessed; and once his limbs thawed a little, pushed a few more pieces of dry timber into the fading ashes, coaxing the fire back to life.

Why had no one kept it alight? He glanced around the cavern. Most everyone was still asleep. Most…but not all. Aragorn frowned as he stared at his friend's empty sleeping place. Where on earth would he go? This was getting a little more than worrisome. This was the second night he was gone. What if something happened to him? What if...what if the rogue found him? The memory of that russet hood and piercing, unseen gaze sent a shiver crawling the length of Aragorn's spine but he forced it ruthlessly aside as he picked up his broadsword and slid icy feet into his fur-lined boots.

"Stop shuffling about will you, ranger? Some of us are trying to sleep," grumbled a hoarse, sleepy voice from the back.

"Haldir is gone," Aragorn told Carlóme.

"Again?"

"Something is amiss," He couldn't explain it but he knew this wasn't right. Haldir wouldn't leave them so close after an attack by orcs-no matter how little the danger seemed or how troubled he might have been.

Lintedal, pressed close to Maethor and covered in a blanket and a shallow drape of snow, snorted at him as he slipped down beside her. At the bottom of the slope he found it. The trail was fresh but very faint. Haldir had come this way and not long ago by the looks of it. The ranger's boots were already dusted with white powder, leaving a very visible path behind but he couldn't help that. He had to find him.

"Strider."

Aragorn spun around to see Carlóme at his side, her javelin protruding over one shoulder and a thick cloak pulled around her body. "I'm going with you."

He didn't stop to argue.

Haldir's mind froze like ripples in a cold snap. He couldn't think or move or even blink. He could only stare at the two figures. Dimly, the still-functional part of his brain chimed a warning. He remembered danger, recognized danger, and realized that danger stood in front of him now, but he couldn't react to it. As if all his limbs were frozen stiff, for all his countless hours of training, all his experience, he couldn't stir sword or hand. And part of him didn't want to. These were undeniably elves and they hadn't made a move to harm him. Yet.

"Who are you?" he asked again, rather proud that his voice came out above a whisper this time.

"Your face…It is known to me." the russet-cloaked figure spoke first, shifting a little closer. "It is you, Lieutenant. I almost didn't recognize you…"

The achingly familiar voice so recently recalled from his dreams sent a sweeping pang through Haldir's body. His brain thawed and his lips moved, numbly, but they moved. "It is 'Captain' now actually…sir."

"Yes…it would be wouldn't it? I am sorry I missed the ceremony." The russet cowl fell back, unleashing a fall of golden hair and unveiling the features of Haldir's ex-commander.

Fedorian for his part looked unchanged, mostly. Nevertheless, years of nightly excursions and daily living rough in the wild had taken their demanding toll. Always slender, Fedorian's once-handsome face was wasted, the high cheekbones sunken, the eye sockets vividly hollowed. For a split second Haldir allowed his regard to rove over the ruined eye, over the wound that had nearly cost his old friend more than his life.

The eyelid drooped over it as Fedorian rubbed the corner absently as though he were quite as shocked to see his once-pupil as Haldir was to see him. But he came no closer, standing stiff and uncertain. The knowledge of their last parting hung heavy between them.

A twinge of nervousness began to flutter in Haldir's stomach region just as it had when he was still a private and the sergeant roared at him to keep his back rigid, head up, shoulders aligned with the heels. Unconsciously, he straightened his posture.

A flash of a grin glittered across Fedorian's face at the movement. "Never forgot did you?"

"What are you doing in this part of the world, Haldir?" a new voice asked and he turned towards his ghostly guide who had also pushed back his hood to reveal smaller, less severe features with blue-eyes and a soft, mournful mouth.

"Well, Arenath, poor friends we are," Fedorian walked slowly forward with a mild chiding laugh and took Haldir's wrist in a deliberate warrior's clasp. His eyes lit up as he inspected the other at armslength who, when he had left Lothlórien, had been but a fledgling on the verge of his skills. "It has been a long time."

The blood drained out of Aragorn's face as he watched the exchange in the clearing. He was sure the one in the russet cloak was the same elf who had accosted him yesterday. But the other…? And Haldir was…He was just standing there without even his saber in hand. Somehow seeing him outnumbered and unarmed looking very much alone made Aragorn's stomach squeeze into a tight knot, his hands slick on his sword pommel.

"I knew it."

The voice nearly startled Aragorn out of his skin. He had completely forgotten Carlóme's presence until she spoke.

The Harad woman's tawny features tightened, the javelin trembling in her hand. "That's him," she hissed. Though she did not understand the elves' language, she didn't need to to recognize the obvious familiarity between the three elves.

Aragorn hastily seized her shoulder to keep her from charging right then and there into the midst of the clearing. "Wait."

The smaller, grey-cloaked elf glanced in their direction.

Aragorn dragged her down and pressed his face as close to the snow as he could. Doing his best to ignore it as it soaked through his tunic, he remained perfectly still, holding his breath. He could have sworn the other elf had looked right at him but that unnerving gaze shifted away again without comment. He cast a reproachful look at Carlóme who thankfully did not struggle against his grip.

"'Don't rush into things until you know what you're facing'—heed your own counsel," he warned her. "Wait."

The woman sank back down on her heels, her eyes still fixed on the three figures in the clearing. "I won't wait long, boy."

"We have heard nothing from you all this time. We hoped—thought you had taken ship long ago," Haldir said, his mind still desperately reeling to absorb this sudden surprise.

The other elf released him and backed up a pace, his expression guarded once more. He looked over his shoulder at Arenath who fidgeted with his bow. "I had unfinished business remaining here."

Haldir knew exactly what that "business" was if Caleb's death and Ral's wounds were anything to assume by. "Why?"

"Why?" Fedorian echoed, his voice deadly soft as though he couldn't believe Haldir had asked. "Have you forgotten what they did to us? To me?"

Arenath shifted nervously, scanning the underbrush. "We shouldn't linger."

Both Fedorian and Haldir ignored him.

"I meant why come to me?"

Fedorian seemed a little pacified by this response and relaxed his white-knuckled grip on the knife in his belt. "Arenath said he saw you near the streambed—with a group of humans no less."

"He didn't believe me," Arenath said, taking his eyes off the leaf litter long enough to cast a little, triumphant smile in his companion's direction.

"Yes, Arenath. My apologies," Fedorian said with a roll of his eyes. "Even after all these years, he still doesn't know his place. I never thought you one for traveling willingly amongst humans, Haldir. And yet you have not renounced all your skills—you found our little woodsman a night ago."

Haldir raised his eyes, wondering how close Fedorian had had to have been to know that. "Ral."

Fedorian tilted his head, frowning a little.

He clarified. "That is his name. Ral."

His captain smiled, a dangerous crook of the lips that somehow did not melt the iciness from his features. "Not anymore. Why do you travel with these men? I watched you with that ranger. He seems oddly fond of your company."

"He is...a boy I met on the road. He owes me a gratitude," Haldir lied, straightening his shoulders and meeting the other's eyes squarely this time.

Fedorian's ravaged face registered a moment's shock before deadpanning. "Once, Haldir, you would have given a man a knife stroke rather than a greeting."

Aragorn frowned.

"I was brash in my youth."

"And you are not now I suppose?" Fedorian laughed again but it was a much more grating sound than before. "Rather 'brash' going off alone with one you did not at first recognize."

Haldir knew he was right but bristled anyway.

"And yet now you freely walk with humans as though they were—what? Comrades in arms? The War is long over, Haldir. Men are not worth what they were then." He curled his lip knowingly when no reply came. "You were always quick to let your willingness to forgive overcome you, Haldir. It kept you from doing greater things."

Haldir forced himself not to flinch. Fedorian was pushing his face in things he preferred to forget. "It was not forgiveness; it was guilt."

"Even that does not excuse your present company. How can you stay with them? You should know by now Men cannot be trusted—after what they did to you before I left," he shook his head. "Surely you have not forgotten that at least."

Haldir kept his eyes cast downwards. He hadn't forgotten—still vividly remembered his youngest sibling's grief when Rúmil with a Galadhrim patrol led by their captain rescued their then-lieutenant from the humans who had taken him captive. Memory never faded enough to take away that sick horror or the image of Rúmil's cheeks raw with tears.

"The ones I travel with have nothing to do with your old grievances."

"Ah, but you don't know my new grievances."

"Don't mistake us," Arenath intervened, catching his comrade's arm warningly. "It is good to see you again, mellon nin," He spoke with much more warmth than Haldir had ever expected. They had not always gotten along in Lothlórien though those youthful days were now long behind both of them.

The younger of the pair locked eyes with his commander and whispered in a voice Haldir could still hear. "Don't provoke him. It was long ago."

"Yes, well, however good, it is ill-timed." Fedorian shook off Arenath's restraining hand and warning easily.

"You must end this now, Fedorian. Whatever game you are playing has gone on for too long." Haldir warned him with a shake of his head. "They are too close on your heels."

Fedorian waved a careless hand. "They call me a 'ghost' around the firesides. Or some such human superstition. They fear me too much to hunt me now."

"She does. She will never stop hunting you."

"You speak of that child of Harad?" Fedorian's eyes glittered as he scanned the clearing with a sharpness that belied his unconcern. "You know, she's been searching for me for years. She and her women have forced Arenath and me to move more than once. Even by the stretch of elves, I grow tired of her! My small comfort is if she looks long enough, eventually she will succumb to the fate that awaits all Men. How is Rúmil? Still behaving himself?"

The marchwarden blinked at the change of subject. "He—he is well. He made sergeant," he said awkwardly, reticent to speak of his youngest brother with this elf he barely recognized as his mentor.

"Good. I am glad he found something to his liking." Fedorian glanced up at the sky as though gauging the hour.

"She is very determined. It is not safe for you here."

"What makes you so anxious?" Fedorian brought down his gaze to level an inquisitive one at Haldir. "They are only human."

"You and I both have seen what humans can do. You are…" Haldir changed his mind at the last moment and didn't finish. "I would not see more blood spilt. If she finds you, she will kill you. For whatever reason is in her."

"She is not my concern. If anything, she is a distraction from my other pursuits like chasing a rabbit instead of a deer. Nothing more," he sighed and lifted his face to the heavens again, searching. "Still no starlight."

Fedorian rubbed his eye as though it pained him, a slight grimace passing across his features like a shade. "All right, Arenath. Stop fidgeting, we'll go," he turned amused eyes on his partner who paced restlessly leaving little trails in the snow-dusted grass. "I would like to see you again, Haldir—unless you wish to come with us now?"

Arenath stopped.

Haldir's chest constricted as he realized what lay beneath Fedorian's friendly offer. Long before, he had had to choose between his commander's friendship and his conscience. He had chosen the latter. "I will be missed."

Fedorian gave a reluctant nod and reached forward to take Haldir's wrist once more. When Haldir began to let go, he did not and tightened his clasp to keep the other from pulling away. "I bear no grudge for what happened between us. When I left. I understand you did what you thought best. You were young and weak—it happens to the greatest of us. But perhaps… now if we can—?"

Something tore the air at an angle between them, ruffling Haldir's hair as it sped out of the dark. But Fedorian was already moving; and the deadly javelin meant for his chest went wide of its intended mark.

As the rogue lithely regained his feet, Carlóme leapt out of the brush, a dagger already drawn. Muttering what might have been either a curse or a prayer under his breath, Aragorn sprang after her.

Arenath leapt to his commander's side and tugged at his arm. "I told you we lingered too long. He was followed!"

Fedorian thrust him aside, a long, black knife, the same he had threatened Aragorn with the other day, appearing instantly in his hand. "Why should we flee? There are three of us and two of them."

"She may have roused the others," Arenath warned.

"No, Fedorian, go," snapped Haldir, who had snatched out his saber the instant he felt the projectile pass. "This isn't the time."

Fedorian bared his teeth in silent frustration. Straightening slowly out of a defensive crouch, he mockingly bowed his head to the fuming woman and sheathed his knife. "Another then."

A chill shot straight up Aragorn's spine as he found himself snared once more by those strange, unblinking eyes; and then they were gone. All that remained to mark the elves' passing was a light stirring of snow.

Carlóme snatched her weapon violently out of the ground, ripping a hunk out of the grass as she did so. "You let him go! I ought to push this through your skull and out the other side!"

Haldir still held the blade crosswise across his torso, never once taking his eyes off the fierce-eyed woman.

"That's enough!" Aragorn wrestled the javelin out of her hands before she hurt someone, including herself.

Stiff with shock, Haldir wondered how long the human had lain concealed there. The Dúnadan was becoming too good a tracker for his own benefit if he, an elf, hadn't picked up on him until now. At least Carlóme couldn't understand Sindarin.

How much had Estel heard?

The ranger's face was inscrutable as Carlóme batted snow off her shoulders, her dusky skin oddly incandescent with rage. "We had him!"

"Don't," Aragorn ordered, stepping between her and his friend. "You are a fool, Carlóme. He saved your life tonight."

She drew her lips back in a snarl. "Oh, yes? I'd forgotten you know elfspeak. Tell me then, Strider—he was defending our cause, was he? He told the rogue to surrender himself. Told him we would kill him. Or did he warn him?"

Aragorn flung the javelin at her feet, his expression surprisingly stony.

"I did not betray you." Haldir lifted his eyes to his young friend's face.

The ranger's smooth visage gave away nothing but concern. "I know."

Heat pulsed against the side of his face and neckthe rekindled fire reflecting in his golden hair. But Haldir remained utterly still, the only concession to movement the half-arrow rolling between his long fingers. He could feel the eyes of the now wide-awake company fixed on him and none more so than Aragorn's.

"Either you tell us everything you know or I won't hesitate to tie you up again." Carlóme stood with her back braced against the cave wall, her jet stare never leaving the elf's face. It wasn't an idle threat.

Haldir stood up.

The Harad woman pushed herself away from the wall, her chin lifted though he towered above her. "You recognized him. Or at least, he recognized you. They both did."

Aragorn touched his friend's shoulder gently. He knew the presence of a familiar face in the murderous rogue had shaken and alarmed Haldir as much as the rest of them. The marchwarden shrugged him off and began to pace as though constant movement on firm ground kept him from being swept away on the black tide of memory.

Still he waited longer to speak, the memories he had pushed away for so long only slowly bubbling up from the mind-well he had dropped them in. But they were clear and clean when they surfaced at last. Sometimes he rued the easy clarity of elven memory. It made difficult and painful experiences far too hard to forget. Sometimes they seemed more like reality than remembrance—especially now.

"Tell us what you know."

Kari had to jerk her legs out of the way to avoid being stepped on.

"I…was a lieutenant when Fedorian became my commanding officer in Lothlórien. Men had been troubling our borders at the time—chasing a band of Haradrim who had roamed too far," he shot a look at Carlóme. "They believed we had allied ourselves with their enemies and any elf who chanced unfortunately across their path was detained as a spy," He had been an idiot to get involved in the first place. Fedorian had warned him. "They were… unjust…in some of their treatment." His voice was surprisingly level.

Carlóme's eyes had narrowed at the mention of her people. "These men thought you were a spy?" She sounded as though she might laugh.

Haldir's eyes flashed. "Would you like to see the scar-shadows on my back?"

Tension crackled in the air between them.

Brenn with disheveled blankets wrapped around his shoulders shivered and hugged them closer. Carlóme was the first to drop her eyes though they still glittered. Forcing himself to unclench, Haldir gritted his teeth against a wave of self-loathing. It had all been so long ago, he shouldn't care about this anymore. Why was it suddenly so hard to—?

"The men were angry and afraid enough to kill us. They shot Fedorian when he, my brothers and a patrol came to my aid. In the chaos, we—we were forced to leave him behind. We believed him dead." Rúmil's tear-stained face flashed across his mind again. "My brother and I found him ten days later in a ditch where they had left him to die. The soldiers had not been kind. I do not know what they did to him in full. To be truthful, I do not want to know. But his injuries were…severe. Some wounds have still not healed."

The blue eye. Aragorn bit his lip.

"Afterward, he grew…angry and cold, uncooperative with others, making reckless choices. He engaged the men in battle again against Lord Celeborn's will and parts of Lothlórien burned." The mellyrn hadn't been the only ones to burn either. Haldir shivered unconsciously and prayed no one had noticed.

"So," Zaren ventured as though afraid to break the silence when the elf ceased. "Because… of what happened to him he-"

"I—I don't understand," Narturi interrupted, her hands twisting nervously in her lap. "Why is he doing this? We aren't the ones who hurt him."

Haldir opened his mouth to reply but Carlóme beat him to it. "What does it matter 'why?' The truth of the matter is he does what he does and needs to be put down before more of our boys get killed."

"But there were two of them, you said," Zaren tugged at the ends of his black hair as he fixed the elf with a bewildered stare as though unsure what to think now. "Who is the other?"

"Arenath, once second-in-command." And incidentally Fedorian's son-in-law but Haldir didn't think that was worth mentioning. Fedorian's daughter had gone to the care of Mandos long ago.

He rubbed a tired hand across his face, not catching Aragorn's concerned glance. He hadn't told them everything. They didn't need to know and he wasn't sure he could tell it even if they did. The grief of that particular summer was so indelibly stamped upon him even conjuring up those faces made his throat close up.

"How did he—they—get here?" Saeryn asked with a softness that belied the intensity of her gaze.

"Fedorian was responsible for the mistreatment and—and deaths of several prisoners of war," Haldir confessed. "He was formally discharged of service…"

"And you banished him from your woods to plague us," Carlóme retorted.

"He left of his own accord." He did not rise to her taunting, his eyes focused on the red-lit wall as though he could project the mental images there instead of having to say them aloud. "And Arenath with him."

"So it is your fault he's here."

"He made a choice. I had no knowledge of his departure until it was already too late."

Saeryn shot a sharp glance in her leader's direction before returning her gaze to the agitated elf. "Could you not have restrained him in some way?"

"How? I thought you knew of Elves," Haldir leveled his haunting gaze on her until she flinched. "To deprive them of their freedom is one of the cruelest offenses. We do not do that to one another." He tactfully did not add you clearly have no such misgivings.

"Even if it saved lives?"

"We did not believe him a danger at the time," Haldir dropped his eyes to the fire once more and added so quietly he could barely be heard over the crackle of burning wood. "Save perhaps to himself. But this questioning is useless. I cannot change what is done."

"So we change what we can. We hunt out the bloodthirsty snake's lair and kill him," Carlóme spat.

"That is easier said than done." The marchwarden shook his head, knowing that after tonight he would never have her trust. "This is his territory and despite your knowledge he has been here longer. If you try to search for him, no doubt he will find you first."

"Of course you would defend your friend. Do you know how many he's killed already?"

"Blindly seeking revenge will get you killed—or worse. Would you rather—?"

"You're a coward! You think you're—"

"What do we do now?" Kari interrupted, uncertainty playing over her thin features as she shot an unquiet look at the mouth as though half-expecting to see the murderous elf shadowed there against the crags. "He knows where we are…"

"Leave," Haldir was adamant and had not taken his blazing eyes of Carlóme's feral ones. They had found their ghost but instead of something from a fireside tale they had found all too lethal a reality—one he knew they were not prepared to deal with.

"Out of the question," Carlóme barked. "We finally have a chance to capture this elf and put an end to him."

"And how many are you willing to lose to do that?" Haldir rejoined, his gaze sweeping the silent group. "Which one of you is wiling to die because of her lust for danger?"

"All of us have lost someone we love to this murderer. If death means we get to rejoin them then that is a price I am willing to pay," their leader snarled, her voice low and fervent.

But Haldir noticed Zaren wince and Kari lower her eyes. The others were quiet and still as stone figures. "It does not seem that all of your band share your enthusiasm for death."

Carlóme looked around at them. Zaren was the only one who would meet her eyes. Her thin hands balled themselves into fists at her sides then abruptly relaxed. "You know I never asked any of you to come with me on this crazy task."

Saeryn who had never really gotten along well with her leader spoke up. "You offered us shelter when we had none. You gave us a purpose, something to live and work for. None of us can ever repay that. We would follow you into death—but not for death's sake. For yours."

Silence met this pronouncement but every one of them had raised their heads and eyes; a few nodded their heads in mute agreement.

Haldir admired their loyalty though he couldn't see how Carlóme had earned it. It made him think of the command he'd left behind.

"You're all not going to cry are you?" Brenn's voice sounded vaguely horrified as he glanced around at the adults.

His comment broke the solemnity of the moment and they laughed. Even Haldir smiled.

"So it remains to be seen. What's to do now?" Carlóme continued when the laughter died away. "I won't take any of you further than I need to but I want this thing's head."

"Then we're with you all the way, lady," Kari said, pulling Narturi playfully against her.

"Good," The sky was lightening with the first blue streaks of dawn. "And I know exactly where we should start."


	7. Uneasy Questions, Evasive Answers

Lintedal nudged his shoulder, nearly knocking him over as he tested the saddle's girth. She wasn't used to such an encumbrance and the only reason he had it on was to make carrying his gear from Lothlórien to Rivendell a little easier. If they ever got to Rivendell that is. At least he could giver her her head free. Haldir stroked her feather soft nose absently as he watched dawn thread the branches with copper. A cloudless day. The snow would be gone by afternoon and any trace of the elves' passage along with it. He sighed and turned from the sun to fasten his saber beneath his bedroll.

"Give that to me."

"Good morning to you too," Haldir said without turning. He felt her eyes boring into the back of his neck like an arrow tip and finally glanced over his shoulder. "Can I do something for you?" Throw you in a lake, mayhap. One well-placed push off a cliff.

"Give me your sword."

"It's actually a saber. I thought it might be useful for when we have murderous rogues after us."

"It's because of you those damned rogues are here in the first place. I can't trust you and I don't want you armed around my band. Give it to me," Carlóme extended her hand, not dropping it when his eyes narrowed on her.

"And if I refuse?"

She lashed out with the javelin in her other hand. Unfortunately her aim was good. She jabbed him right over the cracked rib with the blunt end. The pain momentarily robbed him of breath as he collapsed against Lintedal's flank, the horse shifting her weight anxiously. The dark woman scooped up the dropped saber from the ground.

"You're lucky I don't tie you up."

Lintedal swung her heavy head and Carlóme leapt well away to keep the horse from nipping her.

"What are you doing?" Aragorn raced over, shrugging his overcoat on. The ranger found trouble like a fox. Though unlike the canine, he didn't know how to stay out of it.

"I'm not having him armed around my girls," Carlóme clutched the saber to her like a firstborn son, taking a step back as the ranger approached his friend and touched his shoulder.

"You all right?"

Haldir, one hand clamped tightly against his side, glared dangerously at the dark woman. He wasn't looking at his saber in her hands. Instead he was examining her face with those elementally silver eyes that always made her feel uncomfortable—as though he could sort through the dross and secrets of her soul, pick and choose what he wanted to dangle painfully in front of her. "Who did you lose?"

Her face went, if possible, even harder. She tucked the blade more securely under her arm and began to march away.

A short, snappy whistle made her turn back and she barely managed to catch the knife flashing at her. The well-sharpened blade bit her fingers through the gloves.

"Might as well do it properly," the captain said with a sharp little smile that told her quite plainly she had not won.

Feeling tiny stinging cuts stretch open in her fingers, she clenched the knife tighter as she stalked away.

"Cheerful isn't she?" Haldir remarked, his breathing a little labored. He still hadn't taken his weight off Lintedal though she didn't mind.

Aragorn's eyes flickered downwards at the elf's hand still wrapped around his ribs. "Are you sure you're all right? What did she—?"

Haldir pulled himself into the saddle with a grimace. "Go retrieve Maethor before he decides he wants a second breakfast, will you?"

"Off?" Brenn laughed incredulously, stunned. "Right off?"

"Completely and irrevocably," Haldir said with a slightly wicked smile. It still hurt too much to laugh outright. "It sailed about six meters afterwards too. You have to get just the right torque to your wrists so the blade—"

"Do you mind, elf?" Carlóme snarled, twisting in her saddle to give him a vicious and slightly sickened glare. "Some of us still want to be able to eat lunch when we stop for it! Brenn, don't listen to that trash. He's probably lying anyway."

"She's right. It was eight meters now that I think of it."

Brenn hastily stuffed a fist in his mouth to gag the mirth bubbling out. He was the only one who seemed to have taken the elf's knowledge of the murderous rogue in stride and not cared either way about it.

But most of the company rode in determined silence, their fingers white-knuckled on their horses' reins. Every so often one of them would look up into the branches or startle at the unexpected sound of a bird piping overhead. The grove they currently traveled through was close-growing, the shadows thick so early in the morning. Carlóme had wanted to put as much distance between them and the caves as swiftly and silently as possible but she had not yet said where she was taking them. Not even Kari or Saeryn seemed to know.

"How come you don't need a rein?" Brenn asked in an undertone, his own clenched across his lap as he jolted along the rutted path. His small pony was a source of endless frustration with him had a bad habit of wandering towards the first green thing it spotted: grass, bushes, huntsmen's jackets.

"Usually I do not need one," Haldir explained. "Horses will either carry you or they will not. Breaking them does more harm than good."

Lintedal's ears flicked back as though she knew she was being discussed.

"And she doesn't get away from you?"

"Most days she's in an amiable enough mood to tolerate me."

The horse tilted her body in that subtle movement that made her spine shift sharply up under his leg and Haldir grimaced. "Others… I want to make her into glue."

Brenn chuckled and Aragorn looked over his shoulder, half-smiling. Carlóme too glanced back and said something to Zaren out of the side of her mouth. But he just shook his head and grinned. He'd been enjoying the elf's stories.

Haldir stroked Lintedal's neck absently. He had the distinct impression Carlóme wanted to keep him under her radar at all times for she never rode more than a few yards ahead of him and kept looking back as though to make sure he was still there. His saber she had wedged between her bedroll and her pack, the tip and hilt sticking out of either end respectively. He felt distinctly unbalanced without it and only took his eyes away when Brenn said his name, a bite of impatience in his tone.

"What?" he said absently.

"I asked if you had bad dreams last night. I woke up 'cause it was cold and I saw you moving around in your sleep."

"I hadn't meant to fall asleep. Do you not have bad dreams?" He knew he was avoiding the question but he really didn't feel like having this discussion with Brenn when Carlóme lingered within earshot. Even without the excuse of her presence, he probably wouldn't have answered the boy anyway. Dreams were far more personal things to Elves than Men; and they generally did not discuss them with one another unless absolutely needed or portentous. Last night's visions were neither.

"Sometimes. Mostly dark stuff or weird." Now it was Brenn's turn to drop his eyes uncomfortably. Unlike the elf, he would talk about it. "I had a dream about stabbing someone once. I didn't like it."

"You seldom do."

"Do all elves sleep with their eyes open?"

Haldir sighed. Now that, at least, was a question he could answer. He was glad to get away from the subject of nightmares but also reluctant to tolerate any more of the boy's well-meaning but rather deliberate-seeming inquiries. He suspected the dark woman had had a hand in that. "Yes. We do."

"That's kinda creepy."

Haldir crooked a smile, more amused by the playful digression than seriously irritated. "Yes, well, I imagine if you asked an elf he would say that watching humans sleep with their eyes closed is 'creepy' as well. Unnatural," raising his voice, "If you wish to ask me something, you might as well do it directly and not through your fairer mouthpiece."

Carlóme didn't turn around.

Aragorn watched her stiff shoulders and glanced at the man who rode beside him. Zaren kept his face angled purposefully ahead, every once in a while squinting up into the boughs. He nearly jumped when the ranger leaned over to address him.

"Where are we going anyway?" the ranger asked, his voice stifled by the repressiveness of the others. "Haldir and I took this path coming in and we passed no settlements or anything out here—not even a stream closer than a few hours."

The older man just shook his black hair out of his eyes. "Not here. Too many ears listening in." He looked up pointedly though there was nothing to see.

The ranger pursed his lips and glanced back again. Having managed to stay on the dark woman's good side, He was allowed to ride up front beside Zaren to one side of the main group. Everyone else ringed the elf on all sides with Saeryn and red-headed Miren taking up the rear for neither had horses.

For his part, Haldir kept his head up and eyes straight ahead, taking it upon himself to ride in their midst as though they were an honor guard rather than a prisoner's.

Lintedal, however, was less willing than her master to be crowded and jostled Kari's horse's shoulder so hard when the other got too close that the poor beast stepped off the narrow trail with a shrill whinny of protest. The noise shattered the silence like smashing glass and everyone jolted, hands flying to weapons.

Carlóme jerked her horse to a halt, oblivious to Kari cursing as she tried to get her animal back under control. Stalking through Aragorn and Zaren and nudging Brenn's pony aside, her hand shot out and gripped the elf's calf, the only part she could grasp to stop the mare.

"You don't keep silent we're as good as dead," the dark women hissed, her fingernails digging into soft leather. "Hard enough to do this without you making it worse—and if you do I will tie you up."

Lintedal shifted against the clasp of her hand and swung her long head, eyeing the woman with one dark eye. Carlóme glared right back.

"Keep it in line, or I will gladly turn it into glue for you."

The horse snorted and flickered her ears as though she didn't think very much of that proposal or the one who gave it. She soothed only when the odd-smelling woman returned to her skinny nag and the familiar hand stroked her neck once more.

In a silence even heavier than before, the company moved on.

The going was wet and slippery as the day warmed and melted the snow. Patches of brittle grey-green grass slid into view and hoof and boot alike sloshed through thick puddles of clumping mud as the trail wound and backed over itself towards the edge of the forest. The stream dwindled, miles behind them. When he looked over his shoulder, Haldir could just see it glinting in a brief slant of sunlight higher up on the ridge.

In the other direction, he could see only a little for the trees still thickly blocked his view. But he thought he caught a glimpse of glistening fields and one or two woolly shapes which vanished as they plunged back downhill and the path curved back into the woods. The pines gave way slowly to other kinds of trees, oak, mostly ash and once a line of willows further down.

A couple of hours past midday, Carlóme halted their company and dismounted. It had been a long ride and everyone was hungry, stiff and tired.

"Can we eat now?" Brenn as youngest was entitled to voice his growing body's complaints—to the relief of those who agreed but couldn't.

"Not yet. We're almost there. We have to lead the horses single file from here; it gets narrow. Elf, I want you behind me and Zaren."

The "path" was scarcely more than a deer run. The horses' sides and the packs loaded on them scraped trunks and thick ferns on either side. The trees here were crowded and only every now and then would you catch a short hint of the sun. The horses' hoof-falls softened by mud and dead leaves thumped on the ground, quieter than the wind which rattled the still-stubbornly clinging leaves. A peculiar heaviness hung on the air despite the bright day.

They tied the horses in a copse with enough grass to feed on a little ways off the trail and walked the last few yards.

A huge hawthorn hedge like a vast evergreen wall twisted up out of the ground before them. Its spiraling leaves soared high over their heads, so old and shaggy, they hugged young and overbold saplings to them, swallowing them up in a green embrace until they too became part of the wall like sentries interspersed among crenellations. The hooked thorns were three inches in length, unusually and viciously so.

Carlóme squeezed through a gap, carefully avoiding the long, raking spikes that tugged at her tunic and hair. "Nobody would ever find you here unless you knew about it. It used to be an old Dunlending outpost to keep watch for orc riders from the mountains or Rohirrim—you used to be able to see the Gap from here. But it was abandoned when the forest grew up and rumors of the ghost drove off the last bandits who used this place to bury their caches long ago. That's the only service the ghost ever did me."

One by one they all slipped into a clearing that was higher on one side than the other. They stood at the higher end with the hedge arcing in a wide half-circle off to their left like a snake's back past a wall of red-spotted granite. Remnants of a wooded structure much rotted and dangerously leaning rested against the rock and Haldir could spot places where it had been deliberately chipped away for sleeping places or food storage.

Carlóme tossed her pack under the remains of the roof where snow had not managed to accumulate. "This thing has stood for years. True craftsmanship. You won't have to worry about it coming down on your head at night," she rubbed her hands together eagerly. "Supper then. Brenn, get up, help us unload the horses."

Sulkily the boy peeled himself off the grass and began to un-tack his pony who had stuck his nose cheerfully into the hedge.

Miren and Saeryn jerked free of the foliage, joining them just as they had finished laying out their gear.

"Trail's covered as best we could," Miren said, tossing her sweaty, auburn hair out of her face. She looked pale and cast an uneasy look at Carlóme who nodded minutely. "No signs of anything living."

"I do not think we were followed," Saeryn added, looking over her shoulder at the green impenetrable-looking wall.

"Yeah, well, I'm taking no chances. We'll do a double-watch tonight just in case. Everybody's to stay close. No wandering by yourself. And speaking of wandering, if you want anything hot to eat, we need these water flasks refilled and fresh wood."

Aragorn and Haldir volunteered immediately and after a bit of persuasion Brenn was allowed to accompany them alongside Zaren since Carlóme would not trust the elf out of camp with only the ranger to keep an eye on him.

"Mind if we tagalong?" the older man asked with an apologetic grin that told the ranger he had no choice. Brenn was already through the hedge and calling them impatiently.

"As long as you don't mind following we dangerous folk," Aragorn said, only half-heartedly jesting as Carlóme's stony glare was still boring into the base of his skull.

Zaren grinned roguishly and traced his scar. "Luck's been with me so far. Maybe it'll hold out a bit longer."

"And how do you know it will not?" Haldir fixed the man with a probing eye from his place near the opening in the hedge. "How can you have faith in what your leader does not?"

The man met the elf's gaze squarely and shrugged. "Strider trusts you. He's got more sense than most so that's good enough for me."

Haldir glanced at the ranger who raised his eyebrows and offered. "At least someone thinks so."

The younger man welcomed the older one and lad reluctantly. He had wanted to get Haldir alone. He seemed all right; little trace of the shadows Aragorn had seen in his eyes earlier remained. But there was more behind Haldir's confession last night, something deeper, something more painful that the elf didn't want to discuss in the crowded camp with Carlóme hanging on every word and looking for an excuse to restrain him permanently.

Aragorn hoped, maybe, if they had a chance to talk alone together, he could find out what was really wrong—and why the elf didn't sleep at night.

"Why don't we make this easier?" he suggested, dropping back to talk to Zaren once well out of hearing range of the others and walking alongside the monstrously thick hedge. "You take Brenn and see what water you can find. Haldir and I will collect some wood and meet you back at camp."

Zaren gave the other a pained glance as if the ranger had put him in a difficult position. "Look, Strider, I'm beginning to like you but don't push your luck. You know Dark Car would murder me in my sleep if I left you both alone."

A few yards ahead, Haldir heard and glanced back uneasily. Aragorn had an odd steely look in his eyes which boded nothing good if the man wanted to talk alone.

Aragorn slowed his pace still further, letting Brenn and Haldir get even further ahead, and dropped his voice.

"Zaren," he said the man's name softly, making him look up. He wanted him to understand. "I promise, we're not going anywhere. Nothing will happen to either of us and we will be back. Believe me. I just want to talk to Haldir for a few minutes alone. It's easier…"

Zaren gnawed on his unshaven lip a moment or two then. But before he could reply he heard scuffling and saw that the other two had stopped. "What are you doing?"

Brenn was rifling through the leaves at the base of the hedge, half of his body almost submerged in brambles. Haldir, crouched beside him, was listening intently as the boy explained.

"I only had a second or two but I managed to grab it when she was talking to Saeryn. I hid it in the leaves under here—I think."

"What's going on?" Aragorn frowned as he came up but Haldir had eyes only for Brenn as the boy tugged his sandy head free with a triumphant "aha!", a slightly leaf-moldy blanket clutched in one, scratched hand. He unwrapped it on the ground and Zaren groaned aloud.

"You stole it from her?"

"She stole it from me," Haldir replied, lifting his saber free of the blankets with a soft relieved sigh when he saw it was undamaged.

Zaren crossed his arms as the boy plucked thorns out of his sleeves. "Brenn, what on earth were you thinking? She's going to box your ears."

"A swordsman's greatest defense is his sword. How can we fight something if we don't have the means?" the boy had made maybe too avid a listener to the elf's aphorisms all morning and enjoyed repeating them.

Aragorn shot his friend an exasperated glare.

Not at all penitent, Haldir smiled approvingly as he strapped the worn sword belt back to its rightful place on his hip. "Spoken like a true warrior."

Beaming, Brenn cleared his throat pointedly and stuck out his hand as the elf stood.

Haldir halted, glanced at the open hand, glanced at the boy's set face then, ignoring Zaren and Aragorn's alternately accusing and incredulous looks, unsheathed his small boot knife, the only one Carlóme hadn't taken, and gave it to him.

"Yes!" Brenn whooped, admiring the knife from every angle. Elven-crafted it was naturally and beautifully made unlike the crude one Carlóme sometimes let him wear.

"You still feel safe with him?" the older man challenged, turning to Aragorn once more. As if he were doing this against his better judgement, he shoved the hand hatchet into the ranger's hands. "Fine. Come on, Brenn! Let's see if we can find something better than mud puddles to drink out of. And watch your swinging that knife! I don't want to end up singing for my supper!" He threw a warning glance at the other man over his shoulder. "Be back by sunset, Strider. And not a minute after! Car's going to chew off my fingers as it is and I'm blaming you."

Aragorn saluted with the hatchet handle and joined Haldir who had stopped a little ways ahead.

"You don't think that was maybe a little manipulative?" the ranger queried with a disapprovingly raised eyebrow as the elf fingered his saber hilt.

"Not in the least. That was hugely manipulative."

They walked side by side for awhile with Haldir casting sidelong looks at his companion as he stooped to pick up a length of dead wood. There weren't many as the ground was still very damp. But luck was with them. At the bottom of a small dip they found a huge rowan tree heeled over on its side, blown down by some wild storm. The behemoth was huge, its roots alone easily thicker than Aragorn's forearm and quite dead. They set to work in silence.

Snow piled against its roots like so many unspoken words. Aragorn brushed it aside absently, looking for a decent place to start cutting. Why now that he had his chance could he think of nothing to say? He glanced around and decided the branches were drier and would be easier to carry.

He nearly cut off his hand at the unexpected sound of the elf's voice. The hand hatchet thunked into the wood about a quarter of an inch from his wrist and he shot a look over at his friend. "What did you say?"

Haldir balanced precariously on the rotted trunk was sawing at a whippy branch with his knife. "I said in my limited experience it's unlike you to be quiet for so long."

The man gave a one-shouldered shrug and squinted, searching for a weak point in the wood where it would be easiest to cut. "I just… have a lot to think about."

"Actually I find it refreshing."

Aragorn snorted humorlessly, grasping a particularly sturdy specimen and wrenched it back and forth to loosen it.

Above him, Haldir freed his piece and tossed it down to the foot of the trunk. He leaned on his saber with a small smile of amusement playing around his lips as he watched the man struggle. "You look as though you're having some trouble."

"I can get it."

"I can help."

"No, I'm fine. I almost have it." The branch groaned as Aragorn tugged at it again ineffectually.

The elf uttered a long-suffering sigh and absently swished his swordblade through the air until it hummed. "And you complain that I take too much time. We're going to be out here all night at the pace you're going. Upon reflection, mayhap that would be just as well if I can evade the lecture for taking back what was mine to begin with."

Sweat trickled into Aragorn's eyes. "If I didn't know any better, as much as you complain about Carlóme, I would say you admired her."

Crack!

Aragorn toppled backwards as the last splinters parted, severed by the elf's saber. He fell with the weight of the branch landing squarely on his chest, winding him. When the sawdust settled, he coughed and dusted splinters off his front, mud squelching against his back as he rolled the branch to one side.

"Thanks a lot."

"Certainly."

He hauled himself to his feet, feeling his tunic cling grossly to his back as he set his finally vanquished enemy atop the pile. "I almost had it."

"Well, I severed it though this really isn't meant to be used as an axe." Satisfied that his blade had suffered no ill-harm, the elf sheathed it, only just meeting the man's eyes glimmering in the dark below his.

Aragorn mopped his brow with a sleeve, leaving a muddy streak along his temple, and climbed up to sit on the log beside his friend's boots, his heels drumming a rhythm on the wood which echoed back hollowly. A furrow appeared between his brows as he scanned the darkness, the birch skins shining around them like stripped bones.

"He was your friend then… the—the…Fedorian?"

The hard-won lightheartedness between them vanished as though a flame had winked out.

Haldir's fingers tightened on his saber, the only sign of disconcertion he showed at the abrupt subject change; he'd been wondering when this was going to come up. It was a sensible question to ask, really and hadn't Zaren said Aragorn was sensible? Too sensible.

"I trained under him, yes."

"That's not really an answer to my question," Aragorn was hesitant to push the elf soldier too hard, knowing that if he said one word wrong or made one seemingly harmless remark he would shut down completely.

"Then, yes, he was a friend of sorts—to answer your question." Still too mechanical.

Aragorn lost his nerve to ask more. Maybe it wasn't his place to if Haldir didn't want to talk about it. He clenched his hands on his knees, unable to get those frightening eyes out of his mind. A soldier of Lothlórien… He looked again at Haldir who was pacing the length of the trunk again checking for any easily-loosened pieces they might have missed.

His shoulders were thrown back ever so slightly, his movements graceful and natural, always seeming on the verge of a crouch or a pounce. The saber swayed rhythmically at his hip. In his mind, Aragorn saw the rogue leaping across the meadow with the same, measured steps, the same catlike fluidity. Their eyes glittered with the same steeled sense of purpose. There was pain too. In both of their gazes. The insight surprised him and he shook the images from his mind and the thoughts with them.

Haldir was nothing like that murderer.

The revelation in the clearing had startled him certainly but Aragorn didn't know how to approach the subject with his friend and, to be honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to try for fear Haldir would shut him out entirely. They weren't close enough for Aragorn to consider himself on equal footing with the elf, at least not close enough for him to delve into Haldir's personal life without painful repercussions. But there were a few things niggling at the back of his mind that would not let go their tenacious little claws.

"Go on. Ask what you must before you burst." Haldir was watching him with an odd, closed expression on his face, obviously aware of the ranger's scrutiny.

The young man folded his legs up and draped his arms around them in an attempt to stave off the chill that was beginning to seep its insidious way through his clothes, still silent. He might not have another chance to talk about this with Carlóme and her group so close and privacy so scarce. "I had thought my debts were already paid."

Haldir paused beside him, clearly confused. "What are you talking about?"

The ranger shrugged, keeping his voice light despite the doubt that crushed his chest. Haldir's words last night still reverberated in his mind and shook his faith as much as he tried not to let them. "I'm just a boy who owes you a gratitude aren't I? I wish to know the debt so I might repay it in kind."

"Ah," the marchwarden inwardly cringed. So, the ranger had heard more than was good for him.

"I know…I don't know everything that happened to you," Aragorn fiddled with his sleeve cuff, wishing he hadn't brought this up. "But I had hoped we were friends— and yet these last few days…"

Haldir sat down slowly, waiting for him to finish.

"…these last few days I can't help but feel you've been pushing me away. I mean I know you always keep things close but now it's like you're keeping… secrets and I don't…" he couldn't finish and shot the merest gauging glance up, trying to guess what the other was thinking.

But the elf captain's face was inscrutable as ever though directed away from the ranger's gaze. He was silent for a minute or two in which the quiet stretched agonizingly for Aragorn who heard every creak in the branches and every scuffle of a squirrel in the leaves.

"What I choose to tell you or not tell you has no bearing on yourself, Estel," Haldir said at last, his gaze trained on the white trunks. He used the human's elven name to show him how seriously he had taken his concern. "It is… If I seem harsh or distant in some of my dealings with you, then for that I am sorry and it is something I cannot help. I told you once that some things in my life are not worth knowing. It's for your own good."

Aragorn couldn't see how something so obviously troubling to his friend could in any be for his, Aragorn's, own good.

"Fedorian knows your face now, Estel," Haldir said, tucking one of his legs under the other as he adjusted his position on the log, his head turning so he finally made eye contact with his questioner. "If he thought—even for a moment—that you were more to me than just a happenstance on the road, he would go after you first. That's all I meant by those words."

"I'm not hurt," Aragorn reassured him though a ripple ran down his spine at the word first. "Just… confused, I guess. I tire very easily of elven riddles that have no answer—or not one they're willing to share."

"Some things I cannot tell you," Haldir reiterated, brushing his hair back from where it had fallen over his shoulders. "Some things, in all honesty, I would rather you not know. Not everything I have done in my life is worthy of praise."

One desperate part of him wanted to tell Estel everything, the entire truth right then, to reveal the darkness he held entrapped in his own heart along with the vile memories he barely had the strength to restrain these days. To be able to share that burden with another would take a little of the weight off his own shoulders and leave him free to breathe.

But the other, stronger, more selfish part of him valued the human's friendship too much to do that. Despite the short amount of time they had known each other, he liked Estel: his eagerness and ready humor, his pesky but strangely endearing human curiosity. It had begun to grow on him. He didn't want to lose that so soon. As he knew he would.

He slipped lightly off the trunk, fearing he'd already said too much. "It's getting dark. I'm half-starved and I'd rather not risk another lecture from the harpy tonight if you don't mind." He shot a partly teasing, partly mocking look in the ranger's direction. "Think you can manage that troll club you call a log? Or do you need me to slice it again?"


	8. Hunted, Haunted

The horses didn't hear a step. Feeding contentedly, few of them stirred. Only Maethor and Lintedal lifted their heads, recognizing the familiar yet unfamiliar scent that may have reminded them of the golden land of their birth, of rich leaves and silver mornings or of long-ago battlefields, dank, wet and hot. Lintedal side-stepped, confused by the contradicting scents.

But the newcomer did not bear the hunched, loping shape her mind registered as evil. Nor did it move on four frighteningly powerful legs like those beasts that ripped at her belly. So with ears twisting, she watched, nervous because of the smell but not yet alarmed.

Extended in the outstretched palm were two, tempting morsels. The horses' ears perked forward and Maethor, the bolder of the two, took a step and stuck his nose towards the sweet, allowing the stranger to stroke his coat with black-gloved fingers.

Aragorn had been too preoccupied with other things to bring his saddlebag into the camp earlier. It lay on the ground with the rest of the horses' jumbled tack. As the creased and battered leather slithered open, the mild tang of spilled sword oil wafted out.

The gloves withdrew, revealing pale hands which reached in to extract a blanket tangled messily amongst other provisions. Watched by the horses, the stranger brought the wool fabric to his face and inhaled deeply, the ranger's warm scent flooding his senses, that uncanny mixture of leaves in smoky autumn, of fresh life, of sweat and leather. And something else…something he couldn't identify that lingered at the back of the throat, tingling like lightning.

Interesting.

"I thought I told you I didn't want you armed among my girls!" Carlóme flew at the marchwarden as soon as he and Aragorn stepped through the hedge with their cumbersome burden of firelogs. "How did you get it back?"

Haldir cast only the merest side-glance at Brenn to warn the boy not to interrupt. "You have greater concerns than my weaponry."

"How do we know you will not send for your friends? That we will not all be murdered in our beds some moonless night when none of us can watch you?"

Haldir stared at the dark hedge as though searching for answers to her questions in the thorny branches. "It is a matter of trust."

She snorted.

"And I know that you do not trust me—but have I ever given you a reason not to? Have I ever once acted violently towards any of yours?" If anything Haldir thought he had earned the right not to trust them after what they had done to him. And though his innocence had been painfully proven, this woman continued to treat him like some kind of criminal. As though she saw something in him that made her uneasy. Maybe there was and he just didn't see it. Hadn't he acted violently in the past? What was there about him to trust? Dark, doubting questions chased themselves so loudly over his thoughts, he barely heard her reply.

"Sneaking off last night was a good start."

"He saved us!" Brenn spoke up bravely, getting to his feet. "I saw it. I was half-awake anyway because of the snow. One of them was standing there and Haldir led him away."

But that wasn't it either. Haldir frowned a little. His curiosity had gotten the better of him the night Arenath had come for him. Certainly, he had considered the safety of his friends but wasn't that just an excuse to get him away from their company? He couldn't deny that seeing Fedorian and Arenath again after so long had woken something in him he had thought he had forgotten. She was right to question him. He was questioning himself.

Haldir half-expected Carlóme to berate the boy with a blow but she met his level, defiant gaze with a serious one of her own. He was as much a voice in the group as any of them. She knew the boy she had taken under her wing liked the elf—a bit too much in her opinion; and she more than suspected he had had a hand in getting the elf his sword back though she couldn't prove it.

"You don't know him, Brenn," Carlóme said quietly, shaking her head. "You don't anything about what he's done—or what he's capable of."

Aragorn stiffened. What did she mean by that? Only the look on Haldir's face prevented him from saying anything, determined to wait the dark woman's fury out.

Brenn, however, didn't get the message.

"You blame him for everything even if it's not his fault," he shot back so fiercely that Zaren clamped his hands around his shoulders to quiet him. He twisted in the older man's grasp to look up at him. "But it's true! Just because she's against him all the time because of Carden—"

Zaren shoved a hand across the boy's mouth and hissed in his ear. "Brenn, shut it. Calm down first and think about what's in your head before spitting out things you'll regret later."

Carlóme's nostrils whitened around the edges. Clearly the name Brenn had been about to speak meant something to her. "He's allied with the one we're hunting, Brenn! Known him all his life. Surely something that evil rubs off."

The lad struggled free of Zaren's hold and hand, his face brilliantly red but his eyes calmer. "You don't believe that. Zaren was a thief when you met him. He told me. And you didn't blame him for what he'd done before."

"That's not the same."

"Why not?"

This had gone far enough. "Brenn." Haldir shook his head slightly to still his protests. He wouldn't let the boy fight his battles for him.

Carlóme turned an amused look at her charge into a frown at the elf. "Well, it seems you've got Brenn on your side at least. What'd you offer him?"

"You have nothing to fear from me. I will give you my solemn word that I will not harm them."

"Your word's not good enough."

Haldir closed his eyes, fighting the anger that clawed at his chest. What did she know of his worth? Of his concept of honor? He dumped his pile of firewood on the ground with a little more aggression than he'd intended and began sorting out small twigs to feed to the flames. "What then would be good enough for you?"

Carlóme's dark eyes swept over his rigid shoulders and met Estel's across the fire. "Swear on something you care about. Give me an oath. Swear on Estel's life," She snapped her eyes back to him when he stood incredulously. "You like him, don't you? Swear it and I will let you keep your sword."

Haldir looked at Estel. The ranger had stood quietly off to one side, disregarded until now. Such an oath was no small thing that she asked. Oaths of blood and life had bound Fëanor and his sons to ruin. It would leave him wholly in her control. She could ask anything she wished by evoking the oath and he would have to obey or be proven faithless. And yet if he didn't give it, he would still be proven faithless and worse, perhaps, traitorous. Could he give that? For his freedom? Even for his own peace of mind?

Aragorn knew the importance of a sworn oath as well and his expression darkened still further as he glared at the dark woman forcing his friend into this choice. "He has nothing to prove to you."

"I beg to differ, Strider, he's got everything to prove," Her eyes glinted. "Well, elf? What say you? Give me an oath."

Even the girls had gone quiet, looking uneasily at one another. Zaren still had his arm around Brenn who was watching the elf avidly though he didn't seem to understand the seriousness of what was going on.

The silence spiraled while they waited for his answer. Haldir kept his eyes on the ground for longer than a minute, considering. At last, he raised his head, meeting the woman's gaze squarely. "So be it. I so swear."

Carlóme stared straight into his eyes and when he didn't look away, she nodded tightly. "I will hold you to it. There are worse things than death, elf. Remember that and know what I could do to you if you go back on your word."

"I already do."

He did not stay in her presence any longer than necessary. Contrary to what he had told Estel, he ate very little and afterwards retired near the hedge, seeming to sleep.

Carlóme tossed another log on the fire, sending hot sparks showering up into the dusky sky. She caught Brenn's eyes. "You can thank the elf later for saving your hide. You know I would have beaten you black and purple for helping him."

Recognizing the emptiness in the threat, Brenn grinned triumphantly. "Yep."

"Good. Long as we're clear. Now get to bed. We're up early tomorrow." She turned away when she made sure Brenn was kicking off his boots and glanced at Aragorn wh had gone to fetch his saddlebag from the horses' tack. He retrieved a curious, long-stemmed pipe from beneath the blanket folded neatly on top.

"Not tired, Strider?"

"No." His voice was tight and did not encourage the woman to continue speaking to him as he packed a small bit of tobacco into the bowl.

"You mad at me because I talked to your friend like that?" she guessed, sitting with the fire between them.

"I have trusted him with my life more than once in the months that I have known him," Aragorn said. "He is a soldier and his word is not given lightly."

"I hope so. But being a soldier tends to knock the softness out of you," her eyes hardened imperceptibly as though seeing other images in the flames. The fingers of her left hand cradled her right wrist. "You see a lot of things, do a lot of things that you never thought you'd do. Even if you're sorry for it afterward; it doesn't change what happened."

Something in her tone made him look up from his smoke. He sensed they weren't quite talking about Haldir anymore and his brow furrowed as he watched her.

She seemed to realize she had gone off a little and ripped her eyes from the fire to dart a penetrating stare at him. "There is something… you don't know what it is but you see it under the surface of his eyes. It makes you uneasy. He doesn't tell you everything."

"I do not ask him to." Aragorn didn't let the discomfort her words provoked show on his face. He trusted Haldir. That much he knew and would not let her convince him otherwise. "He saved my life," he said simply.

"People can do good without it being their intention. I am not going to lose any of them because I wasn't cautious enough," She replied as if to herself as she let her gaze wander around the quieting camp.

Most of them had taken refuge near the granite rock, comforted by its bulk and strength. Kari and Narturi, Saeryn and Miren slept beside each other, even Yyrin had curled up near them at a chivalrous distance. Zaren was standing watch at the narrow rift, peering out into the forest with attentive eyes though his ears were obviously elsewhere.

Blue smoke swirling above his head, Aragorn watched her go to him and listened as they spoke softly together in low voices.

"Saeryn reported a group of orcs a little ways off the path—long dead. Said they'd been killed by white arrows."

The rogue was hunting in the area. If orcs had been drawn to his quarry, they must have come under his eye too. And his arrows. It was worthy of further investigation. Carlóme's voice trailed away as she gazed out into the darkness. Zaren shifted at her side.

"Brenn shouldn't have said what he did."

"No. He was right to remind me. I've been…forgetting. He wouldn't want me to forget. Ilùvatar's blood! That elf is going to pay dearly for Carden—I'll see it finished!"

"Is it worth it?"

She laughed. "You think we should have asked for a higher price? There's enough coin on this thing's head to have us living like lords for the rest of our lives. That's worth it. Brenn won't be sleeping on leaves and rocks anymore. You can have those new boots you've been wanting…"

There was a silence but Aragorn didn't turn around to see if they were looking at him. He could feel their eyes briefly on his back and Zaren lowered his voice as the ranger extinguished his pipe.

"We'll go to Rhûn after this is done. What do you think? No more caves or sloppy inns. Just fatness and comfort living off the lord's land."

"I won't ever go back South."

"I know."

They fell into a contemplative watch; and Aragorn decided he'd heard enough. Stretching the cracks out of his back, he walked away from the main group and lay down beneath the hedge. Haldir, his form softly illuminated by an unearthly glow the distant firelight could not explain, was asleep on his back. His hands were folded over his breast, elven-open eyes staring up through leaf-cloaked evergreens. The sight was so familiar to Aragorn that he smiled, the bad-feeling leeching out of his chest as he tugged off his boots and laid them in the grass.

Shadows draped the branches like nets and Aragorn peered through them at the silver-blue stars as he wedged his pack underneath his head. It was a chill night and he shivered, wishing Haldir could have picked a spot a little nearer to the fire as he rolled himself in his ground sheets and blankets. At least, he'd come moderately prepared for a winter journey this time around. He didn't need to get sick.

"Daro."

Aragorn glanced over at his friend. For a guilty minute, he thought he had woken the elf with his moving around. But Haldir's eyes continued to stare past him, not focusing on anything. He stirred restlessly, the cloak sliding off his body as he rolled over, murmuring to himself in his own language.

"Daro… osp… hain edraith!" His elbow caught Aragorn in the ribs, his breathing labored, gasping as though he couldn't find enough air. "Naur! Naur tolon!"

Rubbing his side, Aragorn grabbed the elf's arm in a vain attempt to wake him. Whatever he was dreaming about didn't sound pleasant. "Haldir… wake up…"

The elf didn't hear him. His voice was louder now and Aragorn cringed at the sound. "Lachiel galadhrim…Daro hain lachiel!"

He gripped his friend's shoulders, his fingertips digging in, though the elf fought him. "No one's burning, Haldir, wake up!"

The marchwarden's eyes snapped clear. He didn't even see the ranger at first, his eyes darting around the hedges, still green, his companions, sleeping—not dead. A bead of perspiration disappeared into his shirt collar as Aragorn released him enough so he could sit up, his gaze finally finding the ranger's wide one. He inhaled slowly through his nostrils, easing away from the man's hands and rubbing a hand over his too-pale face.

"Are you all right?" Aragorn watched him concernedly, his hands drifting to rest on his knees. "What were you dreaming about?"

Sweat glistened all the way down the elf's neck as though he really had been burning. He looked like he was going to be sick.

"Do you always make that noise in your sleep, elf?" Carlóme growled from her post.

His eyes flickered to her and just as quickly away again as he swallowed hard and sank into the cool, green embrace of the shrubs behind him. Even the thorns stabbing into his back felt welcome. They were release. He closed his eyes to force the afterimages away and the wind chill on his overheated skin brought him fully out of the lingering nightmare; he could breathe again. His nightmares were getting worse and he still couldn't shake the feeling of a great shadow sweeping over him like an approaching thunderhead.

A tentative touch on his knee roused him out of a dark spiral he was sinking into. Aragorn was still staring at him, obviously very anxious, unsure of what exactly he had evoked. "I'm—I'm sorry if anything I said earlier… If I upset you."

"Oh, Estel, it wasn't you," the elf said with eyes still closed, still visibly shaken. At least this time he could tell the entire truth. "Not you."


	9. Shadows Close In

Brenn pushed his hair out of his eyes as he peered up through the streaming morning sun at the figure. "Is he all right?"

Still not altogether awake, Aragorn forced his dropping eyelids to open as he followed his gaze towards the old ash tree overhanging the hedge. "He didn't get a lot of sleep last night, Brenn, that's all."

"Hurry up, you two, or we're leaving without you," Zaren called, slinging a light pack over his shoulders full of afternoon provisions.

Only the fastest and keenest trackers departed to try to pick up the elves' whereabouts from the dead orcs Saeryn and Miren found last night. Moving light and fast was of the essence so they took little with them. Aragorn left everything but his sword stashed under the hedge.

Haldir watched them go. After last night and in spite of his oath, the dark woman insisted that he stay within her sight, something the elf chafed against bitterly. Imprisonment—even imprisonment without physical bonds—sat uneasily with him. So, in a spark of defiance, he had consented with consigning himself to a post in the crook of the massive trunk most of the morning. The sunrises were truly moving even in winter, perhaps more so because the splay of colors seemed to bleed together for miles with nothing but bare branches to impede the view.

"Elf, get down here! We're going hunting."

Carlóme, discontent but acknowledging Zaren's sound advice on staying inconspicuous, had remained behind with the rest and currently stood at the foot of the tree, peering up through the stripped branches at him, hands planted firmly on her hips. It might have been comical had he felt like laughing.

He sighed and took his eyes off the greenery long enough to glance around. But, alas, wind and birds had carried away all but the most shriveled and least weighty seeds. Reluctantly, he began to descend, stiff from sitting in one place for so long.

Thirty feet from the ground, he stepped off the branch.

She leapt backwards as he landed a foot from her position. Scowling she flung a leaf out of her hair, her eyes unusually wide. "Are you mad? Jumping like that! Might have broken your legs."

He calmly straightened the wrinkles out of his tunic, unruffled by the leap that would have cost any human—at the mildest—a twisted ankle. "I'm astonished by your concern."

"It's not concern," the woman grumped over her shoulder. "If you fell and snapped your neck I don't want to be scraping through the frozen sod to dump your broken carcass in."

So far she had kept her promise and allowed him to keep his blade but she still clearly considered him unworthy of the trust it represented. And most of the others followed her lead. He could feel Kari's eyes on his back as they left the hedge cautiously, striking off in an easterly direction in search of water and game. The day was unusually breezy and warm for winter, a mild reprieve that hinted at harsher snows to come.

Narturi walked very close beside him, the only one not intimidated or perturbed by his presence. On her other side, Haldir met Yyrin's envious eyes gazing stonily back at him. The man had not spoken two words to him since the death of his friend; and Haldir didn't expect that to change at all soon.

The attractive small woman between them was oblivious of the man's jealous tension when she smiled at the elf captain who looked rather dapper to her eyes, despite his reputation according to Carlóme as "an untrustworthy scant."

"You look quite comfortable, Nari," the blonde woman behind them snickered, using the pet name she knew the other woman despised.

Narturi flashed a catlike grin at her and boldly slid her hand into his hair and up along the elf's neck, brushing dangerously close to his ear. "You couldn't do better."

Haldir jerked her hand away as if electrocuted, ignoring the hurt, pouting look thrown his way.

"Just because I don't bed everything with tight leggings, that's nothing to brag about," Kari curled her lip at the younger woman, yanking hard on her braid as she passed.

"Hah! At least I can!" Narturi retorted, shaking her long plait out of the blonde woman's reach.

The back of Kari's neck flushed though she didn't rejoin.

The elf breathed again when the too-brazen female relented of her attentions and sped up his pace until he walked beside Carlóme who, while disagreeable, he could handle more appropriately than being groped by a little girl he considered barely out of babyhood. He rubbed his jaw.

Carlóme grinned at his all-too-obvious discomfort. "What, elf? You don't like pretty girls? Prefer more buxom rangers do you?"

Haldir's facial muscles tightened at the slight against Estel but a curious sense of relief filled him. This was the kind of female attention he could deal with. "You encourage such behavior among your women?"

The dark woman's voice dropped to a growl as she turned her head to fix him with liquid oil eyes. "Not a hand on them," she warned.

"And if they put a hand on me?"

Carlóme shrugged and glanced back at her group who had dropped a few yards behind. "Narturi's just being friendly. Valar knows why. Not sincere."

"Thank goodness for that," he muttered in a voice he thought she couldn't hear.

"You have a problem with females?"

"Not females in general, no," Haldir sighed, wondering how on earth the conversation had wound round to this. He almost preferred her snapping at him. "But I do not appreciate being… treated so… by one who, in my eyes, has not yet left infancy."

Narturi, hearing that, let out what sounded like a wounded squawk.

The Harad woman laughed heartily. The difference it made to her face was startling; the lines of hatred in her brow and around her mouth smoothed; and something seemed to loosen in her eyes. A woman ten years younger shone behind the rigid mask.

Haldir tilted his head calculatingly at her. "So, you are capable of laughter."

The lingering smile wiped off her face instantly as she suddenly realized she had displayed something other than complete and absolute contempt for the elf. "Nothing much to laugh about these days."

"Look!" Kari suddenly pointed, already fumbling for her bow as a white tail flashed up ahead startled out of the brush. "What luck!"

In their haste to keep after the hind, they raced right beneath the cracking oak tree without a thought to look up. None of them, not even Haldir, saw the figure perched among the boughs as his blue eyes tracked them. When he was sure they had gone, Arenath dropped agilely to the ground and sprinted in the direction of the now-empty camp.

Saeryn and Miren found the orcs again with little trouble: just off the path they had traversed yesterday in a scooped-out, bramble-filled dell ideal for those who wished to hide during the day. It seemed the orcs had lived there for some time. Aragorn found deep pits of refuse and ashes of campfires not dispersed by the wind. They had been slaughtered where they slept.

The orcs' bodies were almost useless to them by now though: the warming earth and melting snow decomposed them a lot faster than if the air had stayed cold. Broken swords and shattered arrows littered the clearing as though they had been felled by a whirlwind. But the white arrows through what was left of the throats and the bloated knife-inflicted wounds in some of the bodies let Aragorn believe no wind could have done this.

But even more ghastly than that, the orcs must have discovered the murderous elves' deadly agenda and relished in the possibility of a "free meal" because there were other bones beside the usual game among the foul bodies. Bigger ones marked by teeth and fire scorching. Aragorn's stomach heaved and he thanked whatever power that had prevented him from eating that morning. He straightened and rejoined the group on the little path they'd found leading to the clearing. It looked much-used until very recently either by the orcs or…another.

"Did you find anything, Strider?" Brenn asked eagerly. He had been forced to wait with Saeryn out of sight of the bodies, much to his disappointment.

"I told you there's nothing worth lookin' at Brenn," Zaren scolded the boy lightly but his eyes locked onto Aragorn's. "Come on. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps."

Aragorn couldn't agree more. He did not pity the orcs. They deserved whatever fate they received; but he couldn't help feeling at least a little discouraged now that their one lead seemed to have run dry.

"Looks like you will not get the payment you desire out of this," he remarked almost casually when absence of trouble lulled them into a sense of safety so they could stop for the frugal midday meal.

Zaren sat in the driest place he could find and picked up a small twig to scrape the mud off his boot treads.

"So, you heard that did you?" the older man shrugged, his face wrinkling in concentration. "The town's pooled their coin. Not a king's ransom, mind you. But I'll gladly split it with you if you help us find him. Carlóme didn't want to but I figure might as well be fair if you do your part."

"That's why you wanted our help in the first place."

Zaren wiped his hands on his trousers, exchanging a wary glance with Miren who was listening. "Look, it's not like this changes anything. You're still going to help us, aren't you? I told you I wanted justice for those murdered boys and that's true enough. The money's just an extra. A weregild if you like, for the dead."

"So, what happens?" Aragorn asked with a quietness at once uneasy and stern. He did not like being exploited for profit—no matter how noble the rationalizations sounded. "Bring in what you deem the murderer's head and name your price?"

"Hey, now, it's not like that." The older man met the ranger's eyes with a trace of umbrage on his raffish face. He sighed and picked at a weathered notch in his belt. "I shouldn't be telling you this but I guess you might as well know. Just don't you dare let on to her I told. Did Car ever tell you why she hunts this thing?"

Aragorn wondered where this conversation was going but nodded in affirmation, recalling what Haldir had told him of his late-night meeting with the woman in the Butchered Goat's common room. "Her hand. He ruined her hunting skill with an arrow…"

Zaren shook his head, his unshaven jaw twitching slightly as though he had swallowed something sour. He glanced over at the rest of his company. "Hey, Miren, I thought I saw some parsnip back near the trail. Why don't you take Brenn, see if you can find some of it to go with that soup will you?"

"It's the edge of winter there's not a green thing to be had for—"

"Just, go on and look, will you?" Zaren gave her a meaningful glare and realization flashed across her face.

"Oh, yeah. Fine. Come on, Brenn. Let's go find some parsnip to make Zaren happy."

Saeryn was bent over their cooking fire, studiously ignoring and being ignored.

Zaren turned apologetically back to Aragorn. "Sorry about that. I… I can't have the boy listening in. He's seen and heard too much as it is. Doesn't need anything else in his head…"

"I understand."

"That's what she told you though—the arrow thing? Don't believe it for a minute; she can shoot just as well as she always did. Which still isn't saying much between you and me. But that's not the reason," he raked a hand through his hair and heaved a deep sigh. "The elf…forced her to kill her brother."

Aragorn blinked in surprise but said nothing so Zaren continued.

"Carden and Carlóme were brother and sister, she a few years older. They'd had a rough time of it in the South and came North when they could. I met her for the first time because of him. Even as young as he was, he was the best hunter I ever knew—always got the fattest rabbit, the sleekest mink, the buck with the most points. He liked looking for weird things, hunting things he'd never hunted before and no one else would. Car would swear to anyone who'd listen that he'd killed a big cat when they crossed over the mountains—imagine that!

"They came down here one year and Carden heard about the "ghost" that was troubling these parts. I'd known him for a year or two then and I'd never seen him so excited. Carlóme thought the folk were just being stupid and superstitious for our benefit and Carden was falling right into it. He pestered for days until she finally agreed to go and try to look for the thing with him. I don't know what he thought it was. I just know he wanted it. But we didn't find it. Not even a trace.

"Car got frustrated and told her brother that when he decided to stop playing the fool he could come back. But he didn't. I never saw him again. Carlóme went out to look for him. She was gone so long I thought she'd gone missing too. I was about to go search myself when she comes through the door. Said she found him. That was it. I didn't figure out the rest until later days later after she'd been at the bar for awhile. She'd found the elf. And Carden… Gods, what that monster did to him…makes me sick to think about it," his breath caught in his throat as he brushed a hand over the lower face of his face. "Even now, she still has nightmares."

Uncertain of what to say, Aragorn lowered his eyes.

Zaren rubbed his face with the heel of his hand and stared at Saeryn's back which had remained bent over the small stew pot. "Look, Strider, don't—don't say anything about it, all right? Especially to her or Brenn. And I'd caution you even against telling the e—Haldir."

"I won't."

A rustle made both of them look up. They'd been so caught up in their conversation they hadn't heard Miren and Brenn return. The red-haired woman and the boy were breathless.

"What's going on?"

Miren, half-bent over her knees, clutched a stitch in her side. "We found something. Don't know what it is. Little trail led off into the grass. Big rock…"

Brenn whose breath was a little easier said quite clearly, fear mingling with excitement in his eyes. "I think there was blood on it!"

Abandoning their lunch, Aragorn, Zaren and Saeryn followed the other two back the way they'd come, Brenn leading the way. It took a keen eye to spot an elf path especially when weeds had started to choke it. But they were right. Aragorn followed it with his eyes leading up a short incline.

"We go cautiously now. We don't know what we might find," Aragorn warned them. "We'll go single file. Zaren, you take up the rear with Brenn just in case." Without waiting for them to comply, the ranger loosened his sword in its sheath and stepped onto the path.

Mingled with the unmistakable touch of elves was a darker taint he had never felt before and it gripped his heart with fingers like claws. He shuddered, foreboding crawling the length of his spine as the boughs creaked overhead. The sun dimmed behind a bank of clouds.

Bathed in shadow against a further wall of trees, he could see the rock. It was roughly three feet taller than a man though wider by about two lengths. Every muscle in Aragorn's body clenched. There were manacles nailed above a man's height. Even from here, he could see dark spatters on the grayish stone.

He reached it ahead of the others. There were ridges and spatters ornamenting the stone like paint. He did not touch the chains and instead scraped at one of the spatters. Crimson flakes drifted loose. Brenn was right. It was old blood. Something tingled alarmingly on the back of his neck and he looked up.

Brenn's warning cry came too late.

"Strider!"


	10. The Gambit

Soft smoke curled up on the drifting breeze, the hedge's leaves mimicking the long-missed sounds of laughter and scraped pans. The women were sprawled around the clearing in the sun. "Not a bad catch," Carlóme leaned back contentedly, swiping her tongue over her teeth. The fair lunch, fairer weather and lack of trouble had put her in a decent mood. That was going to change.

The hedge crackled as though someone was trying to thrust their way through in a hurry. She leapt up, hand already reaching for her javelin when Miren staggered through supporting an ashen-faced Zaren.

The man was bleeding badly from a neck wound. Already ugly crimson dripped down his shirtfront. Yyrin helped the red-haired woman lower him to the ground under the wooden shelter as Aragorn and Saeryn lurched in behind them, panting as though they had run all the way.

Haldir leapt up and went to his friend immediately. The ranger was limping and held a hand to his head where a trickle of blood seeped between his fingers. A flurry of activity erupted around them as the others all tried to aid and question the returning party.

"What happened?"

"Where've you been?"

"Did you find him?"

Aragorn couldn't keep track of it all as questions bombarded his already aching skull. Saeryn took his arm and tried to help him sit down but he shook her off, going instead towards his things by the fire. When he noticed the elf captain approaching him, he tried a smile that looked more like a grimace. "It's not bad," he assured him. "Zaren…"

Carlóme was already kneeling beside the older man, pressing bandages over the wound. When the ranger dropped his pack beside her, she glanced up only for a brief second.

"Let me."

Aragorn pulled out a leather wallet given by his adopted father before he left. For some reason, Lord Elrond could never trust his youngest enough to stay out of trouble. With an ironic little twist of his lips as he sorted through pressed herbs and a few vials, the ranger realized it was true enough. Glass clinked as he drew out a sealed bottle with an opaque paste inside. He pulled the stopper out and smeared his fingertips with a little of the precious mixture.

"This will help slow the bleeding."

"What the devil happened?" Carlóme demanded but she leaned back and let the ranger work.

"I was unconscious for most of it," he admitted, almost apologetically as he caught a drop of blood dribbling off his chin. He hated scalp wounds; they always bled more than they should. "I don't know what—"

"We found the elf—or rather he found us," Saeryn said without taking her eyes off Zaren's wan face, her fingers twisting in her lap. The others exchanged looks among themselves; it was unlike Saeryn to be so discomposed in the face of injury.

She explained how they had found the orcs' bodies and how Brenn and Miren had discovered the path leading up to the rogue's old camp. Aragorn, being ahead of them, reached the great stone first but because of the angle, he did not see the danger until it was too late.

"Strider!" Brenn screamed, spotting the golden-haired figure rising over the lip of the rock. "Look out!"

Aragorn's head snapped up. The exact wrong move to make. A steel-toed boot slammed into his chin, slicing his lip against his teeth and knocking him over backwards. His sword bounced out of his limp grasp as he hit the ground hard. Choking as he inhaled dust into his winded lungs, he ran a testing and bloody tongue over his surprisingly intact teeth. His face throbbed and already he could feel blood tingling in his hair. With his head swimming and blood deafening one ear, he pushed himself to his feet and reached for his sword which lay at armslength.

Fedorian cocked his head in surprise at the ranger's swift recovery. Any other man would have been knocked instantly senseless or dead after a blow like that. The man was hardy. No matter. He would take him apart slowly.

The dark Galadhel circled, putting the ranger between himself and the rest of the shell-shocked company. Brenn craned his eyes avidly over Zaren's shoulder when the older man tried to push the boy back in the shadows. They seemed too shocked to move, frightened little lambs among the wolf. One even had a bow dithering helplessly in her hands.

Aragorn saw where the elf was looking and swung out at him, his broadsword sweeping out in a whistling arc. The elf dodged nimbly aside without bothering to take the powerful blow on his knives. Spinning tightly to the inside, he slammed one of his knives against the ricasso of Aragorn's sword, forcing the tip into the ground.

A flicker of pain skimmed over the ranger's face as the knife scraped off a sliver of skin and stubble from his jaw before Fedorian reversed the weapon and smashed the hilt into his temple. Added to the dazing blow from before, Aragorn's head felt as though it had been cleaved open by an axe rather than a knife. He sank dazedly to his knees, his sword sliding out of his hands again. Fedorian picked it up and flung it far out of his reach as the man's vision rocked, the colors blazing together and then blackness.

With a roar, Zaren hurtled across the glade. But Fedorian retreated from the downed ranger and the axe that whooshed within a half inch of his torso. The older man swung out again—too hard—the elf wasn't there and his heavy blade thudded deep into the earth. Before he could pull it free, the elf was right next to him, the knife flashing up.

Zaren quick-released the shaft and flung himself sideways and down as the razor-sharp steel lashed out at him, clipping his throat as he tried to dodge out of range. Blood spurted the grass but the man still scrabbled away on hands and knees.

"Saeryn, take Brenn and run!" he gasped, clamping a hand over the severed vein in his neck. Miren was already beside him, one eye on trying to help him, the other watching the elf but he had disappeared.

The redheaded Miren shook her head in fearful amazement. "He just…vanished. I never saw him. At first, I thought Strider and Zaren were goners for sure. But both were still breathing and bleeding."

"I lost Brenn in the thick of it," Saeryn whispered, her face resting in her hands. "And Zaren needed help fast so we couldn't look for him. Oh, I am such a fool! I had a bow! I should have shot him! I couldn't even move."

"It wasn't your fault," Miren consoled, rubbing her back. "We was all surprised."

"At least you tried to fight."

"It was foolish in any case," Haldir said, examining the ground thoughtfully. "He must have been tracking you. We can only hope Brenn will hold out until he find him."

"And pray the rogue doesn't find him first," Carlóme added, slamming her fist against the granite wall. "How's Zaren?"

Aragorn sat back on his heels and swiped a trickle of sweat off his lip as he pulled a blanket up to the now-sleeping man's collarbone, leaving the bandages exposed to breathe. "The bleeding's stopped and thankfully the cut wasn't deep enough to cause severe damage. It was a near miss though." He made to stand and his legs nearly gave out on him, his vision tilting alarmingly towards darkness. That one blow had been bad enough. Two made his head feel as though it were three times what it should be.

Haldir grabbed his arm to steady him and pulled the ranger up against his shoulder. "And you need to have that seen too. It's not a scratch."

"I wasn't going to say it was," Aragorn muttered, a little woozily as the elf helped him over towards the hedge.

One side of the ranger's face was one big bruise, his lip and tongue deeply cut. He washed the metallic taste out of his mouth and pressed a wad of gauze packed with snow on his jaw. Once the blood was wiped away, the gash on his temple was less visually nasty but he would have an uncomfortable night at best.

"Stop touching it," Haldir grabbed his fingers and yanked them away from the freshly applied bandage. "You are supposed to be a healer aren't you? You should know better."

"It itches."

"Consider yourself fortunate your skull is still in one piece."

"Well, there is that." Aragorn adjusted the position of the pack, compressing the cooler side against his face. Despite the pierce-point it caused in his head, he frowned a little for that very question had been rolling around in his mind since he woke in the clearing. Why was his skull still in one piece? The elf had left him to breathe when he could easily have slain him. Why? He resisted the urge to gnaw his lip. "I have never seen fighting like that before."

Haldir had been repacking the ranger's supplies but his hands stilled at those words. "You are lucky to be alive." He still didn't want to acknowledge how his heart had plummeted when he first spotted Zaren with his throat nearly slashed, afraid that the next body would be Estel's.

"Do you think he knows where we are?"

"I am sure of it." Haldir met the man's slightly wide eyes. "But I also do not think he will attack the camp directly. Not yet. Today was a discovery. Learn your enemy, test his strengths and weaknesses. Suppress the former and exploit the latter."

"War tactics?" Aragorn had never been in a full-scale conflict like that before though his father and even Glorfindel would occasionally discuss their time in the War of Sauron and the Elves or in his ancestor's time of the Last Alliance. It made sense the former Lorien captain would use such techniques if he had seen such action himself.

"You have a mild concussion and a very impressive goose egg but I think it will be all right for you to get some sleep," Haldir's face softened as he gently fingered the side of the ranger's head, testing one last time for any bumps or swellings he might have missed.

Under his puffy face, Aragorn couldn't help grinning a little which turned into a grimace when the elf found a sore spot. "Listen to you. Now who's the mother hen?"

Haldir snorted at the very idea of him being any kind of mothering. "Because you don't look after yourself, someone has too."

Chuckling painfully, Aragorn stopped mid-yawn. He felt drained enough to sleep for a week but as Haldir started to drape a blanket over him, memory jolted. "No… Brenn's still out there. We—we have to look for him. What if—"

"You need to get some rest," the elf finished drawing the blankets over the ranger's legs. "You're no good to Brenn as you are."

"Haldir, I cannot sleep when he's out there, not knowing…" The ranger pushed away the covers and staggered to his feet nearly sprawling as his head expressed its fierce displeasure with his movements.

Haldir grabbed his arm and pulled him back down, his expression steely. "You're not going anywhere." He snapped the words off like icicles, daring the ranger to refute him.

Aragorn did, his gaze half-flinty, half-pleading as he stared the elf down. "Would you stop and rest if it was me out there?"

"I do not have a concussion."

"You just said I was fine!"

"No, now I think you're deranged." Haldir stared at the ranger's resolved, hardened face for a long moment waiting for the ranger to back down. When he didn't, the elf let out a partially exasperated, infuriated sigh and began rifling through his pack, taking a little longer than strictly necessary. "At least drink some water first."

"I will not leave him out there." Aragorn took a long draught from what the elf handed him, eyeing him over the rim. He suddenly dropped his eyes from his friend's face and frowned at the flask in his hand, running his tongue around his palate as though savoring a strange flavor.

The elf was watching him closely.

Aragorn spilled a little of the water into his palm. "A little sweet… for water…" His blinking eyes were fast glazing. The barest amount of realization and betrayal flitted through the man's eyes before they fluttered shut.

Haldir rescued the flask from slipping fingers and caught the man's shoulder as he slumped sideways. Gently, he lowered the ranger until he lay flat on a small pallet he'd made of their blankets. He adjusted them unnecessarily. "You will not forgive me, but you need the rest."

Aragorn alone slept peacefully that night; the rest of the camp was in an uproar. Those not wounded wanted to go looking for Brenn who still hadn't returned. Clearly something had happened to him and they needed to find out what.

Carlóme was already sorting them into groups. "I'll need someone who was there this afternoon. Miren—"

"I will go," Saeryn fastened her quiver over her shoulders grimly. "Miren, stay here and watch over the others."

Carlóme cast a sidelong look at the Gondorian woman then nodded her acquiescence. "Fine. Miren…and Narturi too. You two will stay here. The rest of you I want with me. Yyrin, grab a torch from the fire." She spun about sharply only to find Haldir standing in front of her, leaning on his saber.

"If your friend's taken Brenn, I'm going to kill him," she threatened.

"Where's my cloak? I can't find it!" Yyrin tossed the contents of his pack on the ground and rifled through his sleeping blankets. His eyes flashed towards Haldir; he had wanted to scapegoat the other since his slight against Narturi yesterday. "You took it didn't you!"

Haldir answered the man with a blank look. He was a good five and a half inches taller than the human. "What good would your cloak do me?"

"Forget the cloak," Carlóme snapped. "We're leaving. Are you coming or not?" But her eyes weren't on the other man.

Haldir sheathed his saber. "The dark does not hinder my sight and I am more prepared to deal with Fedorian should I find him than you are."

She darted a glance at the nest of blankets where Aragorn rested. "Your ranger's not going to like you leaving him behind."

"He'll live."

Carlóme retrieved her javelin from where it had lain near the fire and gave him a feral smile. "Then let's go huntin'."

The marchwarden jerked his head tersely and stepped aside to let her pass. He scowled at her back as Saeryn sidled to his side. "She has a temper like a dragon—sly and sour."

"Do not think too badly of her, Master Elf," Saeryn said, very softly so her leader would not hear. "She has not had an easy life."

"Neither have I and it is longer than hers."

"And you're a delight," she retorted with unexpected wit. Her face abruptly sobered as she stared ahead. "I do not excuse her but you must understand. There are hard lessons to learn in the South. When knowledge dogs your footsteps, knowledge that if you anger your lord, spill one cup of wine or drop one load of cleaned sheets, you will either be whipped until the skin curls off your back…Or sent to barracks for the soldiers' amusement…You learn to tread carefully."

He tried to catch her eyes, surprised by the bitterness in her usually mild voice. "You speak from experience." It was not a question.

For answer, she rolled up her sleeve, displaying a strange black mark on the inside of her forearm, a weal with a crimson snake threading through it.

Haldir lifted his hand as though to touch it and thought better of it. "I am not unfamiliar with some customs in the South."

"Then you know how they brand their slaves. Eight months," she said, yanking her sleeve down. "She was there longer than I. We fled together after our 'master' died in a coup. But she has never forgotten that she could never go back and put an end to those who took every inch from her. And now, it is happening again. Your friend took away the one thing that was still worth something in her life. First her brother. Now perhaps Brenn too."

"I did not know she had lost a brother," Haldir glanced at the back of the dark woman's head which bobbed ahead of him in the dark. It made better sense now: her unease around him, the unabated mistrust, the unbridled fury that flashed in her eyes whenever someone spoke condescendingly to her. And yet, freed from one type of slavery, she had chained herself to another in an ending hunt for revenge. He did not see how this could end well—for her or for any of them who followed her.

Beyond the firelit clearing, there was nothing but darkness. Even his elven eyes took a moment to adjust to the forest at night. A chill wind blew up from the valley but he could hear the others all around, their breathing light and uneasy, their footsteps wary of wrenching twigs that would betray their presence. The single torch at the head cast rippling shadows of the company over the uneven trunks.

Haldir did not need the light. Where humans saw only shades of ever-deepening grey, the forest to his eyes hung with veils of blue, bright blue. A bloated moon hung overhead. Shafts of gauzy light illuminated the world; he could see every speckled branch, every skittering squirrel shadow or brown-spotted insect hidden in bark chinks. Nothing ominous yet.

But he'd expected that. Fedorian was too intelligent to leave anything behind and if he had gotten Brenn… No. He couldn't assume the worst. Not yet. For all they knew he had taken shelter elsewhere, waiting for them to find him, crouching in some dark tree hollow or lying belly-down in a ditch. Or face-up…throat slashed…blood pouring…

A rattle of leaves announced an approach and both he and Saeryn at the rear swiveled sharply, hands on their weapons, only to recognize Yyrin wrapped in his voluminous cloak.

Saeryn took her hand off her strung bow and nodded to him, relieved. "You decided to come after all."

The hood contracted as Yyrin nodded and pointed silently over his shoulder the way he had come. Any way they could avoid noise, they would.

"All was quiet at the camp still?" Saeryn hastily dropped her voice as Yyrin nodded again. "I have to go tell Carlóme, we need to veer towards the stream from here."

Haldir let her go as the man took her place beside him. Yyrin had drawn his hood up all the way even though the shield probably impeded his already weak vision. But then it, some of the others had their hoods up too, the elf reasoned, not wanting to be picked out if they were watched from above.

Except the man was taller than he remembered.

The marchwarden looked purposefully up at the branches then stared right at his companion. Yyrin never walked beside him if he could help it.

Yyrin sensed his gaze and the hood shifted towards him a little. A pale, uncalloused hand appeared from under the draping cloak and surreptitiously pressed a folded bit of paper deep into the palm of the elf's hand, curling his fingers closed around it. Haldir scanned the company's backs. No one had discerned anything out of place, all intent on staring outward into the darkness. They never noticed when one of their number suddenly slipped out of line and vanished into the undergrowth. Haldir did not apprise them.

The company searched long into the night along the path, the stream, even daring to return to the bloodstained rock where the fight had taken place that afternoon.

Up on the hill the rock protruded from the earth like a broken tooth out of mossy gums, its very presence menacing as they approached from behind. No signs of the fight remained except for a blade scar in the dirt and flattened brush.

Carlóme stopped short of the rock itself, an almost visible shudder running the length of her body. Saeryn put a hand on her shoulder and whispered something that made her shake her head.

"It's old. He doesn't come here anymore," she said in an almost audible whisper, her eyes stretched wide. "It's old. We chased him out. There's no use looking here."

Haldir examined the rock thoroughly anyway, the torchlight Kari held over his shoulder trembling slightly. The faint light revealed wind and rain seepage had widened the cracks and all but crumbled it. The chains and iron spike driven into the stone to keep them up were desperately rusted and covered in sprouting lichen, the bloodstains made permanent by time. Only evil memory lingered.

Kari backed away from the grisly thing, taking her light with her. She cast about the clearing nervously, holding the torch further away from her. "He's not here… fine… But maybe Brenn hid—"

"No! He's not here! He can't be here!" Carlóme screeched in a desperate hiss, eyes shut as though to block out the sight of the foul rock already chiseled into her memory.

Haldir had never heard her so fearful. She had faced him down in the stables, in the wine cellars. She acted with often unthinking rashness, damning the cost of danger to her life or limbs—and those of others. Yet, here she was, terrified to go any nearer to a rock that was too old to bear any importance to their investigation now. He did not know that she'd seen it before on a like night almost twenty years ago. When the chains had still been used and gleaming.

They retreated from the hill, too nervous to stay any longer. The night was growing deeper and the humans' eyesight worsened as they made a large sweep around the hill.

"We won't find anything unless we fall over it," Kari muttered, shrugging her cloak higher up on her shoulders dispiritedly.

No sooner were the words out of her mouth then Saeryn tripped over what she thought was an upraised root off the path. Something clinked against the base of a trunk and she fished it out of the long grasses. The thing glinted in the torchlight when she held it up. Haldir closed his eyes as he recognized the knife he had given Brenn. The boy had been far too proud of his prize to leave it behind.

His heart sank.

"Did you find him?" Yyrin inquired the minute they squeezed through the hedge, empty-handed, exhausted, fearful and beyond frustrated.

Carlóme almost stalked past him before she stopped short, frowning at him. "I thought you were with us already?"

But no one could remember whether they had seen the man with them or not during the search, nor at what point he'd slipped off to beat them back to camp.

Bewildered, Yyrin shook his head and half-shrugged. "Couldn't find my cloak."

Haldir said nothing as he went directly to his bedroll, stuffing the note deep into his satchel. He cast a glance out of the corner of his eye at Aragorn's face deep in slumber. The ranger lay curled on his side, pressing the good side of his face on his makeshift pack-pillow, the blankets sliding off his shoulders.

The marchwarden fastened his satchel closed, reached over, and tugged the blankets back up around the young man's sternum, letting the tips of his fingers rest a little longer on the man's limp shoulder. He hoped Aragorn wouldn't be too put-out with him when he woke.

"Elf."

He snatched his hand away and swiveled on his heels at Carlóme as she leaned over him, her arms folded and eyes narrowed in a posture he had come to despise. "My name is Haldir."

"I want a word."

The elf captain glanced at Estel, still blessedly oblivious. He straightened and wordlessly followed her towards the ruins of the old lookout platform when this place and its protective hedge had still been useful as an outpost. Despite assurances, no one slept under it for the frame sagged unsteadily. Nevertheless, it was as close to privacy as they were going to get.

A short series of weatherworn, dangerously narrow steps had been painstakingly chiseled into the rock, more like a ladder than a staircase. They wound up towards the wooden platform which still carried the remnants of an aged railing around it. It almost reminded Haldir of the flets his people built though this, certainly, was much cruder than anything the elves devised. Only iron nails driven in to secure the sides against the granite and a long support spar beneath kept the whole structure from coming down. He set his weight gingerly on the wood, waiting for the telltale creak and jerk that would send him plummeting. To his relief, it didn't come.

Carlóme braced her back against the worn stone wall. One could see for miles still though the mid-night depth revealed only the curving tops of trees and scattered stars.

"Narturi admires you a lot. You're making Yyrin jealous," the dark woman offered a kind-of laugh as her eyes searched out the thin man and woman on the ground.

Haldir arched an eyebrow, irritated if this was the only reason she'd dragged him up here at this unspeakable time.

She caught his look. "That's not what I came up here to talk about."

"Then what?" The moon was beginning to set and he wanted to get at least a little sleep tonight.

Carlóme walked a few paces forward and rested her hands on the railing as she gazed down into the camp. Most were lying down in an attempt to find rest while a few sleepless ones talked quietly together. "I don't tell them everything."

"A leader cannot afford to let everything be known about them," Haldir said with a shake of his head. He regularly practiced that particular aphorism even among his own command—or his friends for that matter. "Too much knowledge ruins the image of strength, causes doubt or questions of judgement."

Her gaze speared his, measuring. "Saeryn said she told you."

It took him a minute to figure out what she was talking about but when she touched her wrist, he nodded hesitantly. "She did," he kept his eyes on the rotted railing as he spoke. "What happened to you was—"

"What happened to me is none of your business to remember," she snapped. "And don't you go blathering it around the camp either."

A person's past was his or her own to deal with, not to burden others. Who knew that better than he? He shook his head to assure her he wouldn't.

She passed her tongue briefly across her lips and swallowed as though stealing herself to say something. Her dark hair brushed her cheeks as she checked beneath them. The closest to them was Zaren; and he slept. The dark woman backed against the wall and leaned against the cool stone.

"Men hurt you, you said," she said in a lower voice than before, her voice hoarse and strained as though someone had gripped her vocal chords and stretched them. "What did they do? Did they try to force…? Were you…?" She choked on the words she never could speak aloud.

He looked at her quickly and just as quickly away again. Uncomfortable heat prickled upwards from his soles to crown. He frowned at the railing. "Yyrin has no reason to be jealous. Unless he favors violent attentions. He can have that."

She stared at his tense back then let the unanswered question dwindle into silence. She wasn't sure she'd really wanted or expected a reply anyway. "There's more to this than you are telling us."

He opened his eyes but kept his gaze fixed on the verge beneath them. "I have not lied to you. I have told you what I know."

"Not all of it," the lingering malaise vanished from her face as she leaned forward, trying to catch his eyes. "You might not be lying but I know for damn sure you haven't told us the whole truth. Why else would you protect this elf so much?"

"Oh? And what makes you suppose I'm protecting him?" His eyes snapped to her face with such force she almost stepped back.

She rested an elbow on the railing to keep herself anchored. A smile twisted across her lips, more like a grimace than any kind of amusement. "Because I know. When those men beat you, elf, how did you feel?"

Haldir jolted as if she had jabbed him with her javelin again, the question throwing him so completely by surprise he didn't answer at first and it seemed to confirm her suspicions. He lifted his chin, looking down at her from his not-inconsiderable height and said, "They are long dead. Whatever I felt for then has no more bearing on me now."

But his nightmares were proof enough that the memories still tormented him even after so many years—it surprised him at times. And she had noticed. The pulling-away from any human contact, even relatively harmless ones like Narturi's, the rarity of open affection and the emotional reticence—she watched him with Zaren and the others and thought she knew why he flinched when they passed too close.

"Don't tell me you can forget as easy as all that," she shook her head, a strange white tightness to her lips. "Do not tell me you cannot remember every single thing they ever did to you. Every touch. Every word. Every hated thought that ever passed through your head that you were so sure this time they would see.

Her eyes blazed as she gripped his upper arm, squeezing hard. "I know what it's like—you don't have to lie to me or put on fancy airs. I felt what you felt. You can hide whatever you like in front of the others but be straight with me."

He wrenched free of her impulsive grasp but his eyes when they met hers were cloaked and level. "I am sorry for what you endured…"

"No, you're not. Why are you so unafraid? Did you kill them?" Her eyes gleamed blackly with a terrible hunger that he could see even in the dark. "Did you slit their throats like you always dreamed you would?"

The railing let out a wail as his fingers clamped around it, his eyes fixed on the scratched and water-logged wood. His world funneled down until all he could see was the grain. "You are mistaken. I am afraid."

She glanced at his white-knuckled hands. "You wouldn't be anywhere near us if you hadn't found some way to escape. One way or the other."

"It is not humans that I fear. And I have been traveling with Strider these past two moons. Does he not count?" he put in mildly, still without lifting his eyes from the twining grain.

"You know that ranger is more elf than human. Unnatural wanderers like him are unusual enough. I meant men like us, like Zaren," she leaned in close until her breath brushed a gold lock across his cheeks. "Remember, you swore me an oath to protect these girls. And the men. The only way they can ever be safe is if this monster is dead. If I can't get a clear shot and you get half the chance, you're the only one who can bring him down."

"I cannot." Helping them track him down was hard enough. Haldir knew he could never raise a blade against his former friend and commander, let alone kill him though in all actuality such an act might be for the best.

"You will," she hissed. "Or you're a coward and an oathbreaker." Her tone added—though not aloud—"along with everything else."

He walked away. Off the platform, down the narrow stairs, he strode through the sleeping campers. All lying stretched out, pale and lifeless in the fading firelight. He slowed then stopped. Backtracking, he found himself at Estel's bedside again. With a resigned sigh, he seated himself on his bedroll but did not lie down, having already abandoned the futile hope of sleep. The note and its puzzling message still lingered unread at the bottom of his satchel.

He didn't look up when Carlóme passed him.

Some miles away, dawn was just beginning to filter through pine needles.

In the growing light, wide green eyes watched the blade hiss back and forth, back and forth, rasping over the whetstone. The knife stilled as with a soft rush, Arenath appeared. He stopped short under his commander's severe gaze.

"Where have you been?"

"I…Tracking their movements," the younger elf shed Yyrin's cloak and tossed it to the floor. "As you told me too."

"You were gone overlong. I already know where they are."

Arenath glanced at him warily, flinching and raising a hand to ward off the light reflected as the knife resumed on the whetstone. "Was that wise?"

Rising with sinuous grace, Fedorian glided to a pair of cuffs suspended from darkness overhead. Ignoring the frantic creaking of the ropes, he ran the blade down a white cheek, drawing a razor thin line of crimson under the pale jaw. The being whimpered, its voice muffled by a tight gag, and tried to pull away from the cold, lethal touch.

"Now they will know the true cost of revenge."

Fighting the sour fear taste in the back of his throat, Brenn shuddered and closed his eyes.


	11. Howl Among Wolves

Haldir waited, listening to the return of one search party and the departure of the last, the familiar murmurings and rustlings as the camp bedded down,. Rolling onto his side, he slipped a hand inside his satchel and felt around until he found the little folded bit of paper at the bottom. He craned a wary glance over his shoulder at Aragorn's back. He had woken once, just long enough to inform his companion—in a tone of supreme high dudgeon—of his disapproval at being drugged and left out of the search for Brenn.

The note burned like a live coal in his hands. He read it through once, memorized it and, cautiously rising among the sleepers, poked it into the dwindling fire, watching the corners brown and mar the neat, elvish script.

"What're you…doing?"

Haldir raised his eyes with studied slowness so as not to appear startled. "Tending the fire." A quick double-check reaffirmed that only a bright flare swiftly dimming was left.

Zaren's eyes were still hazy. He couldn't speak well without pain yet and he had to be easy of reopening the wound. He didn't say anything more but watched the elf for a while, intent but glazed. Haldir's eyes dropped to the white bandage under the man's throat, wondering if Zaren knew more than he was letting on.

The man followed the elf's gaze with his fingers and rasped, "Lucky twice."

Clouds loomed unbroken overhead, an opaque ceiling of late duskiness. It was time. Haldir eased silently to his feet, letting the fire burn out. He went back to his bedroll and picked up his saber. Still crouched, he scanned the camp. Nearly everyone was asleep. From sheer exhaustion and low spirits, they had set no watch.

A prickle of officer disapproval shaded his relief at an easy slip-out. He'd have to talk to the woman later about proper vigils and how a single lapse could cause the entire company more grief than they were already suffering.

A flicker of movement over by the hedge entrance made him pause and dart into the shrubs, ignoring the thorns' bite as they brushed dangerously close to his skin and pierced his outer tunic. The last search party returning? No. too soon. They'd be at it for longer than that. Or maybe just a startled bird. It was there and gone so fast Haldir hadn't had a proper look. But he wasn't about to leave it to chance; the woman would surely have his head if she discovered him sneaking out.

Anxious now, he cast about for another way. Maybe this wasn't going to be so easy after all. Another thorn raked his wrist and he winced, scowling at the offending growth. Then his eyes narrowed speculatively.

Using some of the more determined saplings for leverage and disregarding the thorns that snagged viciously at his hair and clothes, he climbed nimbly up the green wall. His hands and face were both scratched and bleeding by the time he reached the top but he was fairly certain the darkness and his cloak had concealed him from anyone's seeking eyes.

Aragorn would be furious if he found out the elf had left him behind again if the earlier evening's bristling lecture had been anything to guess by. He dropped lightly down on the other side and nearly ran smack into Aragorn himself who had been waiting at the hedge's foot. Haldir pulled back with a sharp hiss of surprise as the tall, shadowy shape rose from the tangle of roots.

"What are you doing?" the elf snarled, frustration taking over the startle-reaction when he separated the ranger's distinctive features from the hood he'd pulled over his head.

The ranger smiled in an altogether too self-satisfied manner. "Did you really expect me to let you go off again without me?"

"You were sleeping. How did you—? I—" For once the elf captain was quite lost for words as he looked over his shoulder then at Aragorn who, despite looking a little groggy, wore a slowly spreading grin. The ranger's unconcealed smugness made the elf flare indignantly. "I will drag you back into that camp and drug you again if you won't go willingly."

Aragorn folded his arms resolutely in spite of the pain still ricocheting around his head. "I wanted to know why you were trying to sneak out again particularly when we've already lost Brenn. Wherever you have to go, at least don't go alone. Let me come with you."

"No."

He had expected a refusal but he could be just as stubborn as the elf when he chose to be. "Why not?"

Haldir didn't have time for this. He couldn't stand here all night arguing with the stubborn, stubborn ranger.

But the ranger intervened before he even opened his mouth. "You cannot go alone. Who else will excuse you if Carlóme finds out you left against her orders?" He met the elf's irritated gaze steadily, his face stamped with the persistence of his race.

He had would argue until the night was gone. And if Haldir dismissed him, he'd only follow. The marchwarden found he had no choice and, disdaining even to reply, started walking.

Pleased with his success, Aragorn followed in his friend's shadow as they skirted the hedge and climbed down into the pathless woods. An owl glissaded on soundless wings and something deep in the shadows snapped. The human stretched his eyes wide to catch the least bit of light as he edged forward after the more sure-footed elf, one hand always on his sword.

But the elf captain did not make it easy for him and set a pace Aragorn almost couldn't match, his head still swaying between pain and sleep. He clamped down on a groan as he tripped over an upthrust root and slammed shoulder-first into an unseen tree trunk.

Haldir didn't even break his stride.

"You cannot go alone," the human muttered self-deprecatingly under his breath, his shoulder now a counterpoint to his head. "Me and my big mouth."

He caught up to the elf a couple dozen yards on but by this time he could barely see two feet in front of him and didn't dare ask where they were going. Haldir had stopped and was gazing down at something. After squinting sharply, Aragorn made out the pale fringe of a road.

A tributary of the North-South Road it was no more than a shallow dirt track, just wide enough for a horse and cart though far too rutted for anything with wheels to manage easily. Long ago in the heyday of the little town when bandits and ghosts were rare, masons had built a bridge over the much thicker and faster stream to allow the road passage as it swung south towards the River Isen.

Both road and bridge were deserted as they stepped cautiously onto the muddy corridor.

On surer ground and not struggling through trees anymore, Aragorn drew up his courage. "Where are we going?"

Perhaps not unexpectedly, Haldir gave him nothing more than a withering glare and said in a hard whisper. "You wanted to come. I let you. I am not obligated to tell you more."

Aragon nodded ruefully, supposing he'd deserved that. Still, though Haldir was caustic he usually didn't sound so sharp. Hesitantly throwing a sidelong glance, he realized his friend looked uneasy. He kept edgily to one side of the road nearly nudging Aragorn off it. Every third or fifth step, he checked over his shoulder but whenever the ranger followed his glance he saw nothing but shadowed undergrowth.

"What's wrong?"

Haldir seized the ranger by the collar and thrust him roughly off the path, up against the bole of a sycamore with what he felt was supreme self-control when he felt like strangling the ranger.

"Listen," his voice dropped to a dangerous, authoritative growl Aragorn had never heard before. "I need you to be silent. Absolutely silent. Do not talk. Do not move. You will stay here until I come for you. Is that understood?"

Aragorn nodded. Haldir's eyes narrowed suspiciously. The ranger had given in far too easily; but he would have to trust him to do as he was told. For once. Releasing him, Haldir resumed his path without a backward glance.

The human obediently scooted further back and crouched in thigh-high dead bracken, just within sight of the road as Haldir stepped onto the bridge. He could only see him by the dusky shimmer of star and moonlight that fell about his boots. The man waited for something to happen but Haldir just stood there resting his elbows on the parapet, as though waiting for something.

Or someone.

Curiosity warred briefly with obedience before curiosity won out. He wanted a closer look. Haldir would very likely make Fedorian's inflictions insignificant if he caught him but then, he reasoned, he'd just have to not get caught. Picking a stealthy way towards the bridge, Aragorn kept one eye on finding scant growth for cover and the other on the bridge.

Dark water, swollen from the last melt, lapped furiously at the abutments on either end, devouring them and smearing their stone with yellow-green algae. Dead driftwood and other refuse torn up by the melting snows littered the embankment.

The pebbly bank was slick with nightly dew and damp still in the twilight. Aragorn gingerly edged his way downward, glancing upward every couple of paces to make sure he hadn't been heard. Unfortunately he forgot to check his footing.

His boot hit a slick patch of moss and skidded right out from under him. He flung out a hand to catch himself and managed to stay partially upright. But his left knee scraped the rocks hard and the clatter of stones clamored as loud as an alarum in his ears. Scrambling into the bridge's shadow, he pressed his back against the wet stone wall, listening so hard his chest hurt from lack of breath.

But Haldir didn't look over the parapet. After a tense minute, the man released his breath softly and inspected himself. His trouser leg was streaked with mud all the way down and his knee was torn from the landing. Great. Just great.

At least he hadn't rolled into the stream. Two yards below him, the bank evened out and water, black in moonlight, rolled sluggishly past, the speed of its current revealed only by the dead leaves in its foam. It flowed out from beneath the bridge like a black tongue from a gaping mouth. Aragorn narrowed his eyes at the far bank but saw nothing more than the shadowy snare of willows. The reeds on his side of the river bent and whispered in a nighttime breeze.

Suddenly he realized that it wasn't the wind but voices, voices speaking up on the bridge. He quieted his breathing and strained his ears above the river-lapping.

"I am glad you came, mellon nin," said a voice Aragorn only vaguely recognized. The fact the speaker did so in elvish did not hinder him.

"Alone as you asked," Haldir's reply was a little stiffer, more formal. "What do you want, Arenath?"

With a chill, the man realized Haldir was talking to one of the elves he had seen in the clearing that night.

"Did you burn the letter?"

Haldir must have nodded because the voice said, "Good," a sigh. "I…I wanted to talk to you alone."

"And Fedorian?"

"I—I cannot stay. He'll know. He was already displeased when I stayed overlong to follow you."

"You were in our camp today."

A light laugh. "The skinny human was missing his cloak? I saw him—he was angry with you."

"They are all angry with me," There was a hint of weariness under the sarcasm and Aragorn felt it slice him keenly. Obviously he had missed something important while he slept; all this about a letter and missing cloak confused him. But Arenath was speaking again and he sped his memory forward, trying to catch on what he'd missed.

"…this time? We would both have you if you like. You would have certainly better company than staying among the humans."

Cold coiled around Aragorn's heart. Was the elf suggesting what he thought he was? He knew Haldir hadn't been happy staying with the humans but he wouldn't really consider…?

Haldir did not reply immediately and Aragorn suddenly had the uncomfortable suspicion the elf captain was aware of him and didn't want to say anything the ranger might overhear.

"I have watched the nightfall and found I have no love of the dark," he answered cryptically.

Arenath sighed as though he'd been expecting that answer. "It is not a pleasant place." There was a quiet clink of steel scraping on the stone parapet as though someone had set down a blade.

The other elf's voice was so quiet Aragorn had to hold his breath to hear him. "He is not who he was, Haldir. I mean you know he was never really the same after…after what happened. But it's gotten worse. The things he's done… the things he's made me do… Children, Haldir! Boys younger than…"

"Children like Brenn," Haldir interrupted just as quietly.

"He wants to goad that dark huntswoman. He tires of her interference," Arenath's voice quavered. "The boy is so young, Haldir… Fedorian will make him last as long as possible before…"

Arenath's voice tailed away, his eyes fixed on something at the other end of the bridge.

Haldir turned.

When he had heard the murderous elf had Brenn captive, Aragorn couldn't keep still anymore, regardless of what Haldir would do to him. He leapt up from his hiding place before clearly thinking it through. But by the time he decided that this might not have been a good idea, the elves had already spotted him.

Arenath leapt a step back and snatched up the knife he had dropped on the parapet. Haldir's eyes were murderous.

"Who is he?" There was accusation in Arenath's eyes when he switched gazes with Haldir.

The marchwarden was very tempted to say he'd never seen the boy in his life. "He is one of the huntswoman's band. An unfortunately most…persistent one."

"You told him of this meeting?" Arenath scanned the woodlands over Aragorn's shoulder, looking ready to either flee or lunge at the ranger who shot an imploring glance at Haldir.

"He followed me. But he will say nothing of you being here," he granted the ranger a quelling glare Aragorn knew he would feel later.

"You know I trust your judgement, Haldir, but he is human and my own judgement has erred before," Arenath said, still eyeing the man with distinct uneasiness.

Courteous even in the face of a potential enemy, Aragorn bowed, fingers touching his sternum in an elven gesture of respect. "I apologize for listening when I should not have," the man said fluently. "You have my solemn word of honor your whereabouts are safe with me."

If Arenath was surprised by the man's noble and undeniably elvish greeting, he showed no sign of it.

When the silence grew too protracted for comfort, Aragorn hesitantly ventured, "Please, the boy is dear to us. Can you tell us if he's all right at least?" He was too afraid to look Haldir in the face at the moment to worry about meeting Arenath's eyes which were distinctly less alarming than his confederate's.

"Please," he entreated, spreading his unarmed hands wide, wanting to seem earnest without further alarming the strange elf. "Is he alive?"

Arenath took several paces back as the human moved closer but nodded. "For now."

"Can you help us? Can you tell us where he is?" He disregarded the warning step Haldir took in his direction

Arenath was already shaking his head vigorously before the ranger finished. "I cannot betray him."

"But you obviously don't want him to succeed if you're willing to come to us for aid," Aragorn kept his voice low and un-accusatory but Arenath still bristled.

"I did not come for aid! I came...I came to see Haldir, to get news of Lothlórien, nothing more. I care not if the boy lives or dies," but there was no conviction in his voice. His pale eyes were wide. "I just want him away. His mewling keeps me awake at night."

"So, what would you have us do?" It was Haldir who spoke this time, silencing Aragorn with a look and an outthrust arm that kept him from moving any closer.

Arenath toyed with the pommel of the knife thrust back in his belt. "I—I do not know. Something must be done."

"Yes," Haldir said with such sharpness both Aragorn and Arenath stared at him, startled. His eyes were glittering. "Yes, something must."

"You sneak out without telling anyone, drag Strider into your scheme and then you come back with this dashed harebrained idea that you expect me to go through with," Carlóme grunted, looking particularly disheveled after having just been woken. "And you wonder why I think you're hiding things from us."

Haldir bore the brunt of her ire with limited grace. "My 'scheme' as you so call it may be the only way we can get Brenn out alive."

"But it's madness," Zaren croaked, propping himself up on his elbow "You're absolutely mad. There's no way this is going to work. Strider, come on—tell him, he's mad."

"I already did. It didn't do any good."

The marchwarden threw a sarcastic "you're-so-helpful" glance at his friend. "This will work. But you need to trust me," His eyes rested heavily on Carlóme. "We can play cat and mouse for another seventeen years if you like. I have that time but Brenn doesn't. We have a chance this way."

"How do you know Brenn was even taken by those rogues? We don't know for certain," Kari who had been awakened by her leader's loud voice interjected.

Haldir darted a glance down at her. He'd been wondering when someone was going to ask that. "We have not found him. He left his knife behind—I think that's—"

"What I want to know," Carlóme said as she shrugged her cloak on over the long tunic that served as her sleeping clothes. "Is where you were tonight. You seem to know an awful lot about Brenn when you didn't mention anything of the like to us a few hours ago. Why didn't you say any of this before?"

Aragorn cast a meaning-laden glance in his friend's direction before saying quietly, "We found some new… hints of where Brenn might be. If we presume the worst and Brenn has been taken, that leaves us with too little time for argument."

Far from assuaging Carlóme's misgiving, all the old suspicion crept back into her eyes as she swiveled to face Haldir. "What new hints?"

"You told me that I was the only one who could bring him down," Haldir's eyes bored into hers, forgetting the others who were now wide awake and listening closely. "This is a chance for me to do just that. And every hour you waste arguing with me means all you will have left of Brenn is his broken body."

It was a cruel thing to say but forcing her to think of Brenn instead of his suspicious behavior would make it that much easier. Arenath wouldn't wait all night for him. And if Fedorian discovered him gone too long, the game was up before it began.

"There is no reason for Fedorian to keep him alive save for his own…ends," Haldir trailed his sentence off abruptly as Carlóme stepped in front of him, her face rigid and twisted with a mixture of pain and rage.

"I want Brenn back. Safe. But it's your business if you want to get yourself killed going off by yourself."

It was the only kind of permission he would get. And that was all Haldir needed.

Aragorn fell into step beside him as he walked back towards the bridge, Arenath joining them once they'd left the camp at a discreet distance. The two did not speak, driven by the inner fire of urgency, until they reached the road and gone halfway over the bridge. Arenath stopped and directed his eyes only on Haldir.

"It is better if you do not go overly armed. If you want to get the boy free, you're going to have to be able to move fast and unhindered." When Haldir nodded his acquiescence he moved off to the other side.

Shedding his grey outer tunic, Haldir folded it with exceeding care and slipped it into his satchel on top of his cloak. With Aragorn watching, he unraveled the warrior braids in his golden hair and let them fall free for the first time in years before binding it all back with a strap of humble leather to keep it out of his face. Last, he slipped his sword off its belt, taking with him only a long knife.

"I leave these in your keeping," he handed over the satchel and, after hesitating a moment, the sword as well. "Keep them well for me for I will not appreciate their damage."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Aragorn asked, disregarding the attempted levity as he hefted the strap over his shoulder and cradled the ancient elven saber against his other side. There were so many questions he wanted to ask his friend, so many things he still didn't understand. But he knew now was not the time or place to ask them. Maybe he would get the chance later—when and if his friend was there to answer them.

Haldir didn't answer and glanced critically at his reflection in the stream far below them. Do I want to do this? It was question he was still wrestling with. His watery image stared back at him, unrecognizable and distorted by the current. One part of him admitted, guiltily and only in the silence of his own mind, that he had missed his friends of old, the company he had not realized he'd lacked until he saw them again. Another part of him feared how much had changed in that time. There was a very good chance Fedorian in particular remembered their bad parting whatever his words. He couldn't be sure what he'd do.

"I must," he cleared his throat slightly, gathering the invisible cloak of an officer close about him once more, giving the ranger his final instructions. "Do not stray from the camp, whatever you do. I will send word when and if I can…"

"You know if you need help, I will be near," Aragorn said, trying to catch his friend's eyes away from the water.

"I do not want you near." but he nodded nevertheless. He did not want what might very well be their last moments with one another to be tainted ones of hurt. "Would it do any good to try to dissuade you otherwise? That this is by far too dangerous for you and you are likely to be killed if you stand in his way?"

"No."

"And you do know that it is no good to dissuade me of the same?"

For the first time a somewhat bitter smile passed across the man's face and drew the elf's eyes at last. "You have made up your mind. I know well enough by now I cannot change it. Good luck, mellon nin. I will look for you."

"I will return as soon as I can—with news if not with Brenn."

Taking a deep breath, Haldir sprang away from Aragorn's side. The ranger watched from the middle of the bridge as the two elves slipped wraithlike up the further bank and soon vanished among the thick, shadowy tangle of unknown darkness.

Deep night eased its hold around the small figure standing alone on the bridge. The swift-flowing water beneath him began to glisten as tiny pinpoints of sunlight bled through the tops of the trees and edged the stream with glittering crimson facets. Aragorn remained there, motionless, until the first racket of the morning larks startled him as though out of a deep dream.

Then with heavy, measured steps, he turned and strode back along the dusty, pale road.


	12. Tainted in the Blood

The hedge became a prison. A stifling, deaf cell of green leaves and no answers. Three days had passed uneventfully, most of which Aragorn had spent within the confines of their camp. He aided with the usual chores: searching out dead wood for the fire, repairing and mending what needed to be. He even took a hand at cooking just for the sake of passing the time though the most he had to work with amounted to a bit of leftover rabbit meat and some old, battered parsnips that were the last provisions Zaren had got at the inn.

Crouching beside the bubbling, soup pan, his face sweating and back chilled, he worked at disentangling the snares he'd gathered up that morning. They were empty and had been for two days. The lines were hopelessly tangled and he finally threw them down in frustration.

It was the hedge, he decided, that made him so fretful. He grew so easily sick of enclosing walls especially when they kept him blind and deaf to whatever was happening in other parts of the forest. It was like being shut in a closet in a corner of the house where nobody could find you nor you hear them. No word had come. Not a whisper. Not a rumor. He tried not to dwell on these thoughts but each time he tried not to, he found his gaze drifting towards the empty bedroll and the saber he had stowed beneath it.

Carlóme and the rest of the camp were as restless as he. During the long, dull afternoons, they revolved double watches, attempted to mend the wooden platform to make it sound again and patched up holes in the hedges with whatever they could find.

Kari and Narturi dashed into camp from one of those scavenging trips. Aragorn, watching them, frowned when they crouched beside Carlóme whispering something hurriedly. The woman's face darkened and she rose slowly towards the hedge entrance.

A man, the first Aragorn had seen other than Zaren and Yyrin since the inn, strode into the camp. Lantern-jawed and thick in the shoulders, he was garbed in mottled green like a forest at night. Even his face was smeared with some kind of green dye. The only adornments he carried were a bolas, the leather thongs as thick as whips with boulders the size of small melons, which swayed against a loose belt of snakeskin around his waist. Strangely decorated pouches of all shapes dangled from it and clinked when he moved.

The newcomer's vividly green-painted eyelids flickered as his gaze swept over the small camp, taking in the sagging wooden structure, the fire, near-empty cooking pot, and the faces of the haggard group.

"I hear you're hunting a ghost, Dark Car," the man said, his voice low but smooth as lamp oil.

"Branock. I was wondering when you going to start sniffing around."

At the name, Zaren set down the traces Aragorn had discarded earlier and stood up.

The man, Branock, ignoring the stares of the company, picked up a bowl someone had left by the fire and ladled up a little of the afternoon's frugal meal. He sniffed its contents, wrinkled his nose and poured it back into the pot, his eyes roving again, this time pointedly, around the camp.

"You fixed this place up right well," Warmly, he smiled revealing white teeth. "Pity it still looks like a whore's den."

"You'd know," Carlóme motioned for Zaren to sit down; he ignored her. "Who told you we were out here anyway?"

The man folded muscled arms, the pouches jingling. "You always were desperately impatient. Seeing as we both happen to be out here, I had an idea. Give me a piece of the price on his head and I'll add my half-score of men to yours. This ghost can't hide from all of us."

"I've got all the men I need right here," She said dismissively though Aragorn could see her hands were clenched tightly at her sides and Kari and Narturi flanking her had not stirred once from her side.

"Clearly." Branock's eyes stopped moving and landed on Narturi who flushed but stared right back at him.

There was something about him, about the others' uneasiness around him and the way his eyes roved over and through everything as though judging its value that Aragorn was instantly not easy with. Saeryn was bent over the fire, restacking timber and purposefully not looking up at their visitor.

"Who is he?" the ranger wanted to know as he crouched beside her.

She did not leave off her task. The tips of her fingers shook slightly. "Branock. He was with us for a short time. He's a hired sword."

While Aragorn and Carlóme dealt with this new trouble, Haldir was slipping deeper into his role as spy. Fedorian and Arenath had welcomed him as though nothing had ever separated their brotherhood. Night hunts, old tales and songs told or sung around a pine fire took him back to the years when he was a young recruit, listening in awe of great battles and ancient struggles. He had trouble remembering what he was among.

Their small fire, carefully surrounded and heaped on stones to keep it from igniting the wooden platform, smoldered under the remnants of their evening meal. Tossing his roasting skewer into the ashes, Fedorian hunkered down beside an old chest tucked away near the rear of the talan. Haldir watched him scrunch neatly folded tunics aside, digging for something, but Arenath redirected his attention.

"This fair weather isn't going to last much longer," he said, laying remaining strips of meat over the coals to smoke. "The stream was frozen this morning. I had to break through an inch of ice just to refill the flasks."

"Mind those don't swell too much; we can't afford them splitting in this cold weather," Fedorian told him absentmindedly, still bent over the trunk. "They wouldn't get fixed until spring."

As he straightened, Haldir saw what he held in his hands.

The wood must have been made of some type of hickory, polished to a high, smooth sheen, long and supple enough to sting a horse, and scar a human. The leather tail had a shard of steel affixed to its end, which glinted crimson from the fire. Tucking the riding crop under one arm like a pace stick, Fedorian fetched a knife from another corner, the iron pommel unusually heavy on the end.

"Where is he going?" Haldir asked though he feared he knew the answer, when the older elf slipped down the rope ladder without another word to either of them.

Arenath snapped some small twigs and fed them one at a time into the fire without looking up. "He'll be back in a while. Don't worry about it."

The last twig missed the flames and clattered sparking onto the wooden platform. Arenath leapt up and stamped it out with his heel.

Haldir did not let his friendships rule him and guarded his words in a way he never had before amongst his comrades. He spoke little of the humans he had traveled with and nothing at all of Aragorn. Fedorian seemed curiously intrigued by that particular member of the Harad band and repeatedly asked where he came from though Haldir only ever replied "north."

The floorboards creaked as he rose and chinks of light glinted beneath his boots. The roughly constructed flet held few in the way of possessions, sensible enough for serving soldiers and stealthily concealed. The fixed hammocks that served as sleeping places were draped further up in the branches. Fedorian hadn't returned until late the night before.

In one corner of the main platform stood a beautifully hand-carved desk of pine, the knotted surface arrayed with a wealth of blades: leather-wrapped hilts smoothly attached to simple, elegantly curving steels. A stained rag smelling of oil draped Fedorian's most prized, lebethron-handled fighting knives. The rope ladder though woven from common flax rather than the hithlain of Lórien still unraveled through a hole in the center. Meat hooks for venison hung lower down.

Haldir could feel time trickling away at a speed he had never envisioned before. He had to find Brenn soon and get word back to Carlóme who would be impatient, and Aragorn who would be worried.

"You always were an early riser."

Haldir stepped away from the swaying ladder as his former mentor joined him on the ground. The older Galadhel surveyed him.

"I swear you have grown a full half-sapling since last I saw you. There is some truth then that leaders stand taller than those they lead."

"I have heard it said of wolves," Haldir said mildly as Fedorian slipped a wrist sheath over his forearm and slid a long knife into it. "Where do you go this morning?"

"The wriggling rabbit attracts more foxes to a snare than a dead one," the other replied cryptically as he selected a few strips of the venison Arenath had smoked the other night.

"May I join you?" The question surprised Haldir himself with its bluntness but he couldn't take it back once spoken.

Fedorian, however, did not seem at all bothered by the question though his eyes darkened slightly. "I am rather surprised you did not ask sooner. Why this sudden interest?"

"Arenath is a little too vague for satisfying curiosity," Haldir tried to shrug the question off as though it meant nothing one way or the other to him.

"He is duty-bound to keep the curious at bay," Fedorian was already walking downhill towards a swath he had cut through the long grass the previous eve. "It is better for you to stay here."

Haldir's mind clicked furiously as he wrestled with a way to make Fedorian take him along or perhaps if he could somehow trail him from above?

Fedorian suddenly stopped. With his back still to Haldir, he said, "However, now that you are here, there is no reason why you should not see the fruits of our long labors."

Following the stream for a while, the older elf eventually turned aside and climbed upwards with Haldir close behind trying to memorize the area so he might find it again later. The land even out underfoot and Fedorian halted at the lip of a defile winding down into a grove of close trees.

It was a forbidding place. The trees trunks leaned as though years ago something had plucked them up by the roots and thrown them every which way. They heeled over at crazy angles, their roots sticking up like exhumed bones. At the base of an oak, a split opened just wide enough to fit a man.

A rusted brazier glowed just outside it, close enough to provide warmth but not enough for a hot coal to be used to burn through the restraints. In the curved inside of the trunk, a narrow ledge carved out of the belly of the trunk protruded outward. On this makeshift seat, sat a thin figure like a doll on a shelf.

It was still early morning and dawn's creamy light had not yet touched the defile. Taking a deep breath, Haldir slowly approached the motionless figure, hobbled at ankles and wrists, with a hood over its face. The ragged tunic it wore was ripped and stained in several places.

Striding forward, Fedorian tossed a few more coals on the glowing brazier and whipped the hood off. "Good morning, starling."

Tears stained Brenn's blotchy, red face. Already thin with immaturity, it looked hollow as though he hadn't been fed in a few days and his lips bore the unmistakable plaster-cracked look of dehydration. His eyes were glazed and focused on the earthen floor of his little prison rather than on his captor. His hands were bound behind him with rope though manacles hung over his head, ascending into the dark interior of the hollow tree.

Two of his fingers curling over the restraints were bloody and misshapen. Haldir didn't look too closely but he suspected they were broken. Fedorian's lean frame slipped inside the old tree with practiced ease as he crouched beside the boy. Selecting a piece of the dried meat, he caught the boy's gaze up from the floor.

"Come now, do not fight me today. You cannot starve yourself, child. It's not good for you." His tone was quiet, cajoling even as Brenn pressed his lips together stubbornly and turned his face away in refusal. As he did his eyes found Haldir and unconsciously his mouth dropped open. He nearly choked on the meat thrust between his teeth until he finally had to bite off a little or suffocate.

Every muscle in Haldir's body was tingling and aching but he forced himself to remain impassive even when Brenn, coughing, raised streaming eyes to his face. Blood burned behind the boy's gaze, his voice ragged and creaking.

"He told me you were here," he didn't look at Fedorian. "He told me but I didn't believe him. I knew that if you were here, you'd rescue me. You'd find a way."

He hurled his weight forward, knocking the meat out of Fedorian's hands and nearly sliding off the ledge. "Why aren't you helping me?"

"You should choose your friends more wisely in future, tithenion (little one)," Fedorian said, tossing the dirtied venison into the brazier, the gorging flames sparking in his eyes. Brenn flinched away from the sound of his voice. "They do so have a habit of betraying you."

Fedorian's red-flecked eyes left the fire. "Is that not so, Haldir?"

Haldir made no answer to the underlying accusation in his commander's voice, too torn by Brenn's. It will be all right, Brenn. I'll free you, I swear it—he wanted to say it. But not right under Fedorian's vigilance.

When he remained silent, Brenn snorted with disgust, his small features crumpling with almost palpable pain. "You're a monster."

Haldir looked away.

Fedorian chuckled, ruffling the boy's hair and ignoring his futile effort to pull away. "He is a firebrand, Haldir. The first night he almost crawled to the stream. I had to punish him for that. I don't like to, do I, starling? You made me when I told you I wouldn't if you behaved."

But Brenn had dropped his eyes from both of them and faced towards the back of the trunk.

"He is younger than most of his kind and weak. There is no satisfaction to be had for overcoming him."

"Then why not release him?" Haldir recovered his composure and forced himself not to look at Brenn again as he placed himself between the other elf and the boy's bound form. "Leave this."

Fedorian stopped rubbing the corner of his mottled eye. "What are you asking me?"

A plan had been slowly growing in Haldir's mind the last three days. The idea sprouted and flowered until he plucked it into open air. "Come away from him. Away from this. We can leave. You and I and Arenath can leave together. Let me take you back to Lothlórien—"

Fedorian's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "And how would we do that? That Harad child as you so put it 'will never stop hunting me.' She has even convinced you, Haldir, to brave death in her stead so she can bring me down."

Haldir realized his cover was broken but he did not step back.

"And now what? She will grant me clemency if I give you the boy?"

"No, this was of my own making," Haldir said. "I do not want to see you killed, my friend."

"'My friend,'" Fedorian echoed. "It has been long years since we were friends. Duties change. Loyalties change."

"You were my teacher and you remain my friend whatever else you may think. I no more want to see you killed then anyone regardless of what you have done." His hands were shaking and he clenched them until his fingernails dug into his palms. He hated what had been done to Brenn but he could not just stand by and let Carlóme kill his friend—if she got half the chance he knew she would. Perhaps, Fedorian might find peace either in Lórien or across the Sea if only he could be coaxed away from human settlements.

"What I have done, I cannot change—nor do I want to. I set along this path a long time ago. I will not alter it now though the end of the road looks dark." The crackly, bitter stench of blistering meat suffused the air as the venison untended in the brazier's coals scorched and blackened.

"What you are doing is murder," Haldir said quietly. "There is no reason for it anymore. The humans that—that harmed you are gone. Years ago."

Back-lit by the oily smoke spattering from the brazier, Fedorian's twitching face stilled suddenly. "I did not hear these complaints when you did it. You did not call it murder then. Then it was justice… Retribution well-earned." His words struck like blows and Haldir recoiled from them as Fedorian flung the sack back over Brenn's face.

"I paid for it," The conversation was swerving drastically out of Haldir's control. "A lifetime of guilt and grief for my errors! But I did not continue to heap blood on my hands against those who cannot understand and do not deserve to shoulder the burdens of past sins."

They were bold, dangerous words but he had made it quite clear that Fedorian would not sway him in this. Not again.

Fedorian turned away and raked the meat out of the coals, letting them gutter on the grass. "The humans do not understand you, Haldir. They do not know you and they do not want to. The ranger… the Harad woman…They will ruin everything you hold dear."

"It is not like that!" Haldir snapped.

"They will take you as they took you before. And use you until you are nothing more to them. That is what Men do. Everything they touch, they taint. They are choking weeds in this world and need to be uprooted."

Haldir shook his head. "That is something I cannot be part of."

"But you are already part of it," Fedorian smiled, his lips edged with ice despite the tainted smoke swirling around his face. "I will admit you have new strength in you. But it is a crumbling foundation you have built, Haldir. It will come crashing down around you if you are not careful. You will turn on them, as you turned on them before."

Haldir didn't listen to anymore. He had to get out of there, out of the smoke, the fire, the madness in his commander's eyes. He barely noticed where he was going, working on forcing one deep breath out after another, his heart thrumming a wild tattoo in his ears.

Lintedal made soft sounds under her breath as a woman mutters to herself when she thinks no one is listening.

Aragorn stroked her butter-soft nose. "I know, híril bain (pretty lady). I know. He'll be back."

The horse twitched her ears towards the sound of the ranger's voice as he began to hum then sing quietly as he brushed her smooth sides. Being around horses had always had a soothing effect on him despite that they were easily over eleven hundred pounds heavier than you and a swing of their head or tap with a back foot could put you in a very bad way for a good while. Maybe that was what comforted him.

Lintedal's ear flicked sideways. But Aragorn didn't look up when the other man spoke, seeming still absorbed in his task though his movements were short and brisk, keeping close to the tack where he'd left his blade. He knew what Lintedal heard and smelt because he could as well.

The odor of smoked fish and reapplied dye accompanied Branock as he led a thick-legged bay by a rope. The horse tossed its head restively and tugged at the halter.

He looked over at the ranger without speaking as he tied the bay's rope to a low branch.

He and his men had attached themselves loosely to Car's band though they remained outside the protective hedge in a state of constant vigilance. Aragorn had glimpsed them on his way to check on the horses. Crouching over makeshift fires or checking weapons they looked like a hardened, life-toughened group. Some even dressed bare-sleeved despite the cold.

When the bay finally settled comfortably, Aragorn felt the huntsman's eyes settle on him but he still didn't turn.

After Branock left that morning, Carlóme had called them together and warned them to speak as little to the huntsmen as they had to and say nothing of Brenn, Haldir or their encounters with the rogue elf thus far. The reason she gave was mercenaries like him were always at best, overambitious, at worst, overzealous. And if he was offering his services, it was best to be wary. But Aragorn suspected there was more to it than that. Carlóme obviously bore little love for the man and you had to know someone to dislike them that much.

The mercenary seated himself on the bay's unhooked saddle and watched the ranger for a while. Strips of rosy skin curled off an apple as he took a small curving knife to it from one of the pouches in his belt.

"My name is Strider," Aragorn offered after the silence spiraled a bit too long. "Where do you come from, friend?"

Branock lifted a corner of his lip, displaying his white teeth, and nodded at the bandage around the ranger's forehead, ignoring the question of his origin. "That's quite an impressive lump you have, Strider."

"It can be dangerous out here." Aragorn raised a hand to the gauze ruefully before remembering how Haldir would scold him and lowering it.

"So it seems," Branock's eyes landed pointedly on the elven horse's tack where Aragorn had leaned his worn broadsword and Haldir's saber. "That's a pretty blade."

Aragorn stiffened when the man moved. He'd wanted to keep the saber in his sight at all times but now he cursed himself for bringing it. The covetous look in Branock's eyes was all too obvious and deepened as he admired the weapon from brass-encased locket to vine-traced hilt.

"Surely you don't use two such heavy things in battle?"

Aragorn subtly intercepted the man's slow progress towards the saddlebags. "One is my own. One is in my keeping."

"In your keeping." Branock echoed, his grin widened as though he knew something the ranger didn't. "Had a spot of good luck did you? Some lord's soldier or passing supplies-wagon got a bit of the bad?"

Aragorn didn't like the suggestion in the man's tone. "I did not steal it."

"Sure, I believe you," Branock held up his hands and backed away from the ranger's blockade. "Honest men like us, we ought to stick together. As you said, it's dangerous out here. The more we trust each other, the better our chances. Am I right?"

"Trust is earned," Aragorn muttered the adage he was all too familiar with.

"So it is, so it is," Branock agreed affably. He walked back to his own horse and made a show of rustling through his pack, giving Aragorn a good look at the assorted, jewel-studded daggers, plain knives and jingling pouches of coin he had stashed inside.

Branock gave the man a slow smile over his shoulder. "I heard about you in Merdon. Rumor says you beat off a gang of horse thieves single-handedly up in the woods."

"That was more through…chance than any skill of my own."

The older man laughed. "Right. Chances and ghosts. That's all these farm-men spout when they're in their cups. You believe in ghosts, Strider?" It seemed this was the subject he'd wanted to get around to for a deep golden glow surfaced in his eyes when he looked over his shoulder at the ranger again.

"Sometimes," Aragorn fooled uncomfortably with the brush in his hands, running his fingers through the long bristles. "Specters are not always visible to outside eyes though. Sometimes the only ghosts are those in your mind, those of the past."

"And those are quelled easily enough with a mug of ale," Branock still laughed though he faced away from the other man. "How'd you get that knock again?"

Aragorn knew full well he hadn't told the man how he'd gotten his injury. "Being careless."

"You might be right. The specters might be all in your mind," Branock muttered as he extracted something from one of the leather pouches at his waist. "Unless they got pointy ears."

Puzzled, the ranger gingerly took the ragged, grease-stained parchment the man handed him and smoothed its rumpled corners out. It was a death warrant. The signatures of those who had lost family members to the alleged ghost rested alongside the amount of coin each had put up for the monster's head.

"Passing these all around town," Branock tapped it with a forefinger, a sly smile sneaking across his face. "That "ghost" might put a knife in one or two of ours but by the time we're done with him, there won't be anything left but his head to carry back."

Lintedal let out a shrill whinny, her hoof stamping the ground as she tossed her head towards the pines until Aragorn seized her head to quiet her.

Turning his back on the younger man, Branock tucked the warrant back into his belt and tossed his assorted blades into his pack. He looked back when he reached the treeline.

"You know, Strider, trust can be very profitable when you don't have to share it with women. Think on it." With a last nod in the ranger's direction, he walked past the first flank of trees.

And came face to face with an elf.

Branock stopped dead, the pack slipping off his shoulders with an audible thud. Neither had seen the other until they nearly collided.

Haldir had let his feet take him where they would, scarcely paying attention to where he was going. Unbeknownst to himself, he had wandered right back towards the camp and the horses. He did not recognize the green-painted man in front of him and a slow frown darkened his brow.

Branock lashed out hard. Either he knew more about elves than he let on or he was very lucky for his fist squarely struck the pressure point under the elf's jaw. Haldir collapsed soundlessly.

"Can you believe the luck!" the mercenary shouted triumphantly back at Aragorn as he knelt on the unconscious elf's arms. "Walked right into it!"

The marchwarden stirred feebly as the effect of the unexpected blow eased. At first he felt nothing but the ache in his jaw, a stone grinding into his spine and confusion as to why he was lying on the ground. Then something coarse and abrasive tightened around his wrist and his eyes flew open.

The man leaning over him saw him beginning to waken and smiled a long, slow smile of satisfaction as he wound the rope from his pack tighter. He couldn't believe his luck. "Looks like I won't need Car to tell me where you are after all. I thought elves were supposed to be hard to catch."

Haldir looked up into the man's eyes and did not see either Branock's face or hear his voice but another face, another voice of a man long dead who had said nearly the same thing to him. Talking with Fedorian had brought ugly memories rising viciously to the surface. Memories of days of starvation and labor, nights of whippings and degradation more painful than that…The man's knees straddled him, the weight on his chest heavy and unbearable. But his wrists weren't tied all the way yet.

Catching the look in his eyes, Branock jerked the cords taut.

The marchwarden was too fast for him. He saw the knife in the man's boot and with a powerful twist, wrenched one of his hands free and got his hands on it. The mercenary scuttled off him fast but not fast enough. The knife rammed into his shoulder and pierced deep. His howl sent his men and Aragorn running.

Haldir was on his feet. Putting more pressure behind the knife handle, he forced the man back step by step until his back collided with a trunk.

The ropes slipped from numb fingers as Branock, teeth drawn back in a contorted grimace, hung on the mercy of the one he'd thought had been such an easy catch. He swore he saw a flicker of vermillion behind the elf's stony eyes.

The dwindling afternoon darkened around Haldir as leaves hissed over his ankles. The trunk against which Branock leaned took on a silver sheen, the roof above gold. There were other faces, other voices in the woods around him, not angry ones but ones for help, cries of pain. Branock's face morphed again and it was a much younger countenance with the knife in his shoulder.

The tumbled dark locks of Aragorn's doppelganger, Tergon, the youthful Gondorian soldier who had been Haldir's only friend and ally in a sea of enemies during those horrific days and nights in the Gondorian camp so many years ago. The touch of a wet and hot fluid on his fingers tore his gaze away from the man's whitening face.

A snaking river of liquid pooled down the steel, filling the fuller to capacity so it overflowed onto his fingers which gripped the green-twine hilt so tightly, his knuckles paled. He realized too late that he had not yet pulled the knife out. Branock moaned.

The sound seemed to shake the elf for he blinked and the dark world vanished, Tergon's face melted away and he found himself staring at an older man, his green-painted face a mask of agony as he slid limply down the trunk. Realization turned his veins to ice. Horror-stricken, Haldir stepped back. It hadn't taken anything. One blow and… Fedorian was right.

You will turn on them, as you turned on them before.

Bile rose in his throat, his retreating steps growing faster and more frantic until he tripped over an exposed root and fell against a trunk as though he were the one who had been stabbed. For several endless seconds, he stared at the man curled over his knees, his shirt darkening.

An outraged shout ripped the veil wide open before Haldir's eyes and his head snapped up. More figures were running at him, more men, all with drawn blades. He couldn't fight all of them. The man was still bleeding at his feet; he could feel it drying on his hands like ink. Without thought for anything else, he bolted, so fast he didn't hear one of them call his name.

"Haldir!"

Aragorn sprinted after his friend, dodging around Branock who was getting dazedly to his feet.

Hearing pursuit close behind him, Haldir put on a turn of speed that would have shamed a deer. He was up in the branches of an oak, ash, birch. Bare branches flew by as he flung himself through them, trying to outrun the memories as though he could outrun his own body. The bloodstains on his hand began to burn with sweat. He was hot when all he craved was cold, cold that would douse the horrible flame and wash the stains away.

He returned to the ground when he could no longer hear pounding footsteps behind him and all but collapsed beside a stream. He broke through ice to get at the water but by now he couldn't care. Over and over again, he plunged both hands into blessedly cool liquid; he stared at his hands, bone-white, beneath the dark, glistening surface. They would never be clean enough. The water cleansed him of visible accusation but the blood had already soaked deep into his skin, tainted him from within.

"Haldir?" Aragorn braced himself briefly on his thighs, his breath coming raggedly and head spinning from the run his still-hurting body couldn't take quite yet.

The elf captain didn't so much as glance at him. He didn't seem to have heard.

Worried, Aragorn paused only a half-second before wading forward, ice creaking and snapping under his weight. He ignored the scream of his nerves as cold seeped through his boots when he crouched, drenching him to the shins. "Haldir?"

Close enough now, he could see the marchwarden's eyes were overbright, almost feverish, staring into nothing. Tendrils of his golden hair had worked free from the meticulous tail and matted around his temples. His hands were underwater, upturned like a penitent.

Startled by the blank emptiness in his friend's gaze, the ranger grasped his friend's soaked forearms and pulled them out of the water. "Haldir!"

He could feel the warrior's wrists trembling in his fingers. He didn't know what had set this off but things had been going wrong since this hunt had started. Haldir was drowning in his past and Aragorn wasn't sure how to pull him back.

"Haldir, what happened? Come on, talk to me," he tried to get through to him though his legs were cramping and he could no longer feel his feet. The elf captain still wouldn't look at him and the glow in his eyes frightened his friend.

It looked almost like… madness.

"He's dead isn't he?"

Momentarily thrown by the question, Aragorn glanced back the way they had come with a frown. "No," as though he didn't think the man should consider himself so lucky, "He's hurt but you didn't…He'll be fine."

He watched the elf absorb his answer. Slowly, so slowly, the elf's muscles relaxed. He stopped trembling and blinked, the glow sinking back into the silver pools of his eyes.

"He's alive, mellon nin."

Slowly, feeling filtered back into his mind. Rocks stabbed upward into his knees, his hands were rubbed raw from scraping against sand at the bottom of the streambed. A north wind combed through the locks of his hair and chilled the sweat on his temples. Haldir gently freed himself from Aragorn's clasp and unbound his hair, letting it fall like a curtain. When he opened his eyes, they were rueful.

"You're soaking wet."

"Well, when you drag me into a stream I don't have much of a choice do I?" the man laughed, too relieved to see life rekindle in his friend's eyes.

Aragorn watched him with concern even as he unfolded his stiff limbs and rubbed his legs to get the blood circulating back through them. Something had happened those three days. He wasn't sure but whatever it was had affected his friend beyond anything he could have imagined. I should never have let him go. "You don't have to go back there. We'll find another way to get Brenn out."

Haldir shook his head as he stood, rivulets of icy streamwater dripping off his fingers. "I will be missed." Aragorn was wrong. He needed to be back there more than ever. He had to prove—to himself if no one else—that he had not become what he feared most, what Brenn had spat. A monster.

"You don't need to go back there." Aragorn tried to insist.

"I know where Brenn is," he said, his expression hardening, warning the ranger not to argue with him further. "I can get him out of there. I just need a little more time."

Aragorn's heart squeezed as he realized his friend could not be swayed. And his own resolve hardened. "I just want you to be careful."

Haldir only nodded but his eyes had gone sharp. "Tell me you will not follow."

"You shouldn't go."

"Estel, promise me!"

The ranger exhaled sharply, his breath a long, white stream of smoke into the cold afternoon air. "I promise I will not follow."

"I will come with word myself if I can." Haldir didn't look quite convinced of the ranger's sincerity but he bypassed any further assurances. "At least I hope to come myself. Do not follow me."

Aragorn's face remained level, betraying nothing. "Tomorrow night. Or else, I'm coming after you."

Eerie eyes watched the scene below as a gust shifted the russet cloak. He'd heard all he wanted. Momentarily, Fedorian allowed his attention to waver. Orphaned by the brutality of war and carelessness of men, Haldir had known grief and suffered hatred at men's hands. He could be a great source of anger, of power if only he would tap into it—as he had just done.

But guilt and that human's companionship tore him away from the empowering darkness over and over again. He had to be shown that there was no better way to shield yourself from the evils of the world than to become one. Close yourself off from intrusive feelings like compassion and empathy.

He himself had left such empty emotions behind long ago, when they had left him crippled, when they had not saved those he cared for. Better to shut it all off until those you once feared, feared you and resorted to trickery to bring you to heel. Fedorian's mismatched eyes narrowed. He shouldn't let himself sink into this again. Arenath said he brooded too much as it is.

That and the ranger was looking up.

Fedorian didn't move. Even if the boy possessed the sharp eyes of Elendil, he would have a hard time spotting the elf this high. None knew more than the Galadhrim about concealment. Even so, there was something preternaturally keen in those upward-looking eyes. Full of something deeper than he had ever seen in those whose lives had already passed through his hands. Almost he felt he was indeed looking into the eyes of Elendil the Tall as he had during the Battle on the plains.

The dark Galadhel smiled down at the top of the ranger's head, his gaze trailing after the human as he began the long trudge back the way he'd come.

Use those eyes while you may, pen laeglin, keen-eyed one. Soon, I will close them forever.


	13. True Colors Bleed

Amber shafts fluttered through the mellyrn leaves and patterned onto the smooth floorboards, slowly cooling to crimson and twilight. It felt too large, this place. Revenants lingered in the empty rooms, memories of smooth laughter and echoing footstep. Silence permeated the talan like the shroud that covers a loved one. As the room deepened around him, he didn't bother to light a candle.

Haldir sat back against the headboard of his long bed, still with his mud-spattered boots on the quilt. His mother would have been angry if she were capable of feeling anything other than despair. One leg drawn up to his chest, his arm curled around his knee and a fist pressed tight against his lips as though to break the silence would shatter him. His mother finally lay asleep in the other room, wearied beyond endurance. Rúmil and Orophin were probably still awake but he couldn't summon the energy to go and comfort them. Not when he needed to be alone. Haldir squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his hair maintaining his silence. The old saber balanced precariously on the edge of the bed toppled to the floor with an ear-splitting clatter.

Silence flowed in to fill the gap left by the noise. He didn't pick it up, couldn't even look at it. So he started when the blade scraped the floorboards.

Fedorian examined the weapon critically, turning it this way and that to catch the little light coming in from the window. "This is disgraceful." His voice held no contempt and despite being accustomed to roaring orders on the parade ground did not disturb the silence.

Lighting a lamp, he retrieved a wet rag and meticulously wiped all traces of battle from the deep fuller before sliding it back into its battered scabbard. As he set the sword on the mahogany writing desk, he directed a long slow look at the younger elf before saying softly as though fearing to wake a sleeper, "Geilrín will look after her tonight. She gave her some tea to help her sleep."

He and his wife both were staying to look after the household, now reduced by one. Silivren, though young, had her mother's gift for healing and intuition and was looking in on little Rúmil and Orophin. Rúmil was too young yet to fully understand what had happened and Orophin was too shocked to break it to him.

Haldir nodded, white-faced. He knew it was his duty to console his brothers but he was grateful to Silivren for doing a duty he didn't have the strength to yet. His gaze drifted around the room, looking anywhere but at his saber or into his sergeant's face. His eyes landed on the dented, scarred armor tossed negligently into the corner of a room. Dark splotches of orc blood crusted in the chinks he hadn't managed to reach. He could find no joy in the destruction of the Dark Lord's armies and the scattering of his most fearsome servants. Victory had come at far too high a price and not just with the deaths of Elendil and Gil-galad though those had been by far the worst blows. For some.

When he continued to sit without speaking, his sergeant scratched at a bandage beneath his loose tunic which hid a near-mortal injury taken on the plains of Dagorlad. His green eyes measured the young elf keenly. "Our lives are but leaves in the river. Come the floods, we spin and writhe beyond ours or any other's control save Fate's. And she can be cruel. We must take things in stride as the Valar will it."

"Please, Sergeant, spare me platitudes. I have had enough of useless attempts at comfort."

Fedorian cocked his head, taking in his disheveled appearance. "I daresay you have. Your father is not yet consumed on his pyre and already you disregard his words and wallow in self-pity." If the young one would not react to condolence, perhaps he would to provocation.

A bright wash of hurt crept up Haldir's neck and flooded his face. "Are you saying I dishonor him!"

Fedorian closed the bedroom door and perched on the edge of the mattress. "Your father was an honorable and brave man. He died in a manner befitting his station; and he did not forsake his duty though it meant leaving you. He sacrificed himself for our people, for freedom from a great evil so Middle-Earth could be cleansed."

Haldir retreated into silence again but Fedorian did not stop.

"Soldiers like your father, like you and I, are warriors born and do not forsake life easily. Though the Firstborn are not meant to taste death, we seem to more often in these darkling days. We may choose it in battle or it may come to us unexpectedly. But if you give up now and succumb to despair, your body will linger far longer than your spirit. You will live but you are dead inside. And there's no sense in that. You have a lot to live for, Haldir. You have many who need you—your little brothers not the least of them. And I daresay your new command will need you as well. The Dark Lord of Mordor may be gone but his servants still plague the land. There is much work to be done. Work must suffice while the heart aches."

Fedorian, having said his piece, paused a moment and heaved a quick sigh with a prolonged glance towards the door. "That being said, there is no shame in releasing grief. It is better to let it go then to hold onto it and let it devour you from the inside."

Reaching forward, he cupped a dry cheek; his green eyes searched for and at last caught the glistening silver. Their gazes held for a few seconds longer before something broke and the younger elf closed his eyes, letting his head sink into one hand, his shoulders quaking.

The older officer hooked his fingers behind the back of the younger's neck and pulled him tight to his shoulder. "Quietly, quietly."

Though he comforted his young charge then, Fedorian, who eventually became Captain of the Northern Fences, could not let go his own grief when it came for him. It swallowed him whole. Haldir shook his head and banished the unpleasant memories back into his mind's darkness. So many years had passed and so much had changed between that endless night of outpoured grief in his family talan and where he sat now in a very different talan, a very long way from his home. Haldir let out a slow breath and rested his head back against the smooth bark, his gaze drifting upward to where his companions slept in hammocks strung between the boughs.

Silently, he got his feet under him and stooped to pick up his knife which scraped ever-so-slightly against the floorboards. He stiffened but all stayed still and quiet. Nevertheless, he remained partially crouched, breathing lightly through his nose, every muscle tensed. Minutes passed and his feet began to go numb. Nothing. He gradually let out the inhale he'd been holding and straightened.

"Where are you going?"

Arenath's wide eyes met his as he whirled round. The smaller elf's spare frame could scarcely be seen as he leaned over his hammock-bed. But Haldir saw his blue gaze glimmer.

"I am restless, that's all. Go back to sleep."

"Nightmares?" Arenath's bare feet brushed the ground.

Haldir wondered what made the other jump immediately to that conclusion. "Please, Arenath, go back to sleep."

The other elf shot a nervous glance up into the trees though there had been no movement there to make him do so. Haldir did not follow his gaze. Every hair on the back of his neck stirred with unease. Without pausing for more words, knowing that every second brought him closer to discovery, he glided down the ladder. He didn't know Arenath had followed him until the elf touched his shoulder.

"He knows where you went this afternoon."

Fedorian hadn't been there when Haldir returned. He had been too distracted to notice until his mentor sauntered back some hours later. He'd been hunting. Hunting what he hadn't said and neither Arenath nor Haldir wanted to ask.

"I know," Haldir was still walking. Not willing to be left behind, Arenath, after a moment's pause, caught up with him as they ducked through the willows' waving branches.

Arenath recognized the path and checked himself sharply, grasping at Haldir's arm to make him halt too. "Where are you going?" There was a faint trace of panic in the other's voice.

Haldir shook him off lightly. "I am going to see Brenn." He couldn't get the boy's accusing eyes out of his head. Nor that word. Monster. Especially now, after he had stabbed that man, after Estel found him in the stream… the ranger shouldn't have had to see him like that.

"What? No, Haldir!" Arenath hissed, glancing back. "Don't. He'll know. I cannot lie to him."

"You haven't seen him have you?" Haldir suddenly whirled on his heel. "You haven't gone there once. You don't even know what he looks like."

"I don't want to know," Arenath squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, his voice dropping another octave until it was barely a whisper. "I—I only see them… when he's finished with them. I bury them."

That stopped him. Haldir turned slowly to regard the blue-eyed elf. Mingled revulsion and pity tugged at his heart as he noticed for the first time the heavy circles under Arenath's eyes, the waxy pallor of the elven skin and the lack luster of his hair. Even the shimmer of starlight around all elves seemed dim around him.

"Say what you wish. It doesn't matter now." He still heard Arenath's footsteps following behind him, soft and tentative but catching up as he hurried through the undergrowth. The moon speared through the bare branches. It was a clear, cold night.

"Why can't you just leave it alone?"

"Because what he is doing is wrong and you know it."

"He's…he's not well, Haldir. He doesn't—"

"He knows exactly what he's doing. And he will not stop."

"Would you?" Arenath grabbed his arm again, his expression suddenly fierce. His jaw twitched. His blue eyes caught the moonlight and seemed to glow as he stared up into the taller elf's face. "Would you stop if you knew what he did? If you saw what he did?"

"You forget, Arenath, I did. I watched the mellyrn burn. Rúmil still bears the scars on his arms from it."

"But at least he still lives," Arenath almost spat. "You have something to anchor you here."

"I know their loss hurts still."

"It has never faded! Not ever! You find it easy enough to wrap yourself in your high virtues and justify yourself by aiding their killers!"

"Don't you ever tell me that I forget Geilrín or Silivren, Arenath. Do not," Haldir's eyes glinted. Their names had been in his thoughts all night and he would not stand Arenath castigating him for forgetting those he had loved as dearly as his own family. It was in part because of them that he refused to join Fedorian's cause.

"I loved them as much as you did, Arenath. Or has living out here dulled your memory as well as your good sense?"

Arenath felt himself thrust back a pace as Haldir pulled brusquely out of his grip again.

In chilly silence they walked until Haldir began to recognize the trees and the land dipped down sharply into the defile. Ahead he could see the twisted trees bathed in moonlight. A flicker of orange showed the brazier was burning brightly.

A shadow passed before the flame. Arenath drew his breath in sharply.

"You can't go down there now."

Haldir didn't need Arenath to tell him that. He could see Fedorian just as well. His eyes flicked instantly to the little figure he could scarcely glimpse in the yellow light. With the hood over his face, he couldn't tell if Brenn was awake or not but his heart renewed its throbbing. Tiny rivulets like red ribbons were running down his arms.

"We have to get him out of there."

Arenath had already started back towards the talan but stopped at those words. A sigh escaped his lips. "You are determined to do this?"

"He is a child."

The smaller elf beckoned him away from the top of the defile. "They would not have liked this. Geilrín and Silivren. If they knew…"

"I know." Haldir said, his fingertips brushing the other's shoulder.

A beat of silence passed. Arenath licked his dry lips, his fingers tugging idly at the loose, ragged tunic he wore for a sleep-shirt. "If I help you…we can go home?"

Haldir could not bear to break the hope behind those blue eyes though a vision of Carlóme's face if she knew what he was about to do flickered vaguely over his thoughts. He nodded. "I will take you there myself. But if Fedorian discovers our plans too soon all is lost."

"What would you have me do?"

The camp was quiet in the pre-dawn. Flexing her chilled feet into fur boots, Carlóme rose, wrapping a blanket over herself as she prodded the fire into life. She had just got water boiling for morning tea when Branock strode into the camp looking as fresh as rainwater in a clean tunic and new dye. He smiled on observing the heavy circles under her eyes that were two full shades darker than her usual complexion.

"Trouble sleeping?"

"Something you never have trouble with, I know."

"My, we are out of temper this morning."

"Seeing you always puts me out of temper," she growled, tossing a handful of dry leaves into the water.

Aragorn who had been taking last watch kept a careful eye on him. The man had said his business with the huntswoman this morning was important. But if he insisted on causing trouble, the ranger had no compunction against tossing him out. Zaren who had waited up with him apparently had the same idea.

"Watch your tongue, Branock, or I'll show you some manners with my boot up your backside."

"Easy, Cut-throat," Branock surveyed the thinner man with amusement. "You might start bleeding again."

Zaren lunged a step forward but Carlóme stopped him with a look.

"Speak your piece, Branock, then get out. You're spoiling my morning with your ugly face."

Branock laughed and helped himself to a mug of the tea. "First a thief, then a scruffy ranger—your band's turning into mine, Dark Car."

"I don't take in ruffians, Bran," she smiled but it was with far less merriment than his. Her words seemed to imply a slight for his face flushed the color of weather-stained brick.

"I didn't come here to be insulted."

"Then you really shouldn't have come here at all." Carlóme's eyes had hardened to steel. The javelin she kept ever within arms' reach was stuck in the ground beside her.

Branock's eyes flickered over it before his face broke into another disarming smile. "But then I wouldn't have the pleasure of your company. I always shouldered my fair share of the work, Dark Car, not that you appreciated it."

"Speaking of shoulders…" Her eyes landed on the grimy bandage peeking out from beneath the man's loose collar. "What'd you do? Threaten to halve your boys' coin again?"

By his post Aragorn stirred. He had said nothing to either Carlóme or Zaren about his encounter with the hunter yesterday. Nor of Haldir. He didn't want them—Carlóme, especially—thinking that maybe the rogue elf had turned Haldir onto his dark path.

Branock glanced all too obviously over his injured shoulder at Aragorn and gave him a tiny wink. "You were there, boy. Why didn't you tell them? Nearly had the elf in my pocket yesterday. Had him on the ground but didn't even see the knife 'til it was in me. He's fast, I'll grant him that."

Behind his back, Aragorn shook his head ever so slightly. Carlóme's eyes narrowed.

"Whatever happened to that waif, Car? That skinny little pet of yours—what was he… ten? Eleven maybe last I saw of him?" He squinched his eyes under the paint at her stricken face. "He run off on those pretty legs of his?"

"Get out."

"Oh, come on now. Surely you're not still sore—"

The javelin's tip spattered dirt on his jerkin as she yanked it out of the earth.

The pouches at his belt swished against one another as he tossed the rest of his tea out on the ground and got to his feet. "All right. All right." He adopted an injured tone as he passed the ranger. "See how they treat me? I only come by for a friendly chat and they say 'get out.' Fine bunch of friends."

"Branock if you don't start moving, my javelin's going to be your new friend."

"I think you should leave," Aragorn's eyes revealed nothing more than polite expectancy and the man's bristly face twitched up in a grin.

"You're a fine, young lad too, aren't you?" He swatted the ranger's shoulder in a comradely fashion then heard movement behind him and sprang through the hedge. "Give any more thought to my offer?"

"I am staying here," Aragorn's hand gripped his broadsword lightly though he could still feel the man's touch burning on his arm like a brand.

Branock looked disappointed but shrugged it off. "Can't say I blame you for staying I suppose—enough poke in this camp to keep a decent man happy for the rest of his life. Offer's still open though if you ever want it."

Carlóme appeared in the hedge entrance, shouldering Aragorn roughly aside.

At the sight of her, Branock threw up both hands. "I'm going, I'm going."

"Rotten as an old tree, Strider. Don't share his company more than you can help it. You might get something on you," she muttered as she stalked past him, the javelin nearly clipping the side of his face. "Wish the elf had had the decency to finish him off for us."

A soft whistle pierced the air, making them both pause. Birds were scarce at this time of year and they hadn't heard a jay in this part of the forest at all. Both exchanged a look then Carlóme nodded shortly and went back into the hedge while Aragorn circled around in search of the noise.

The hedge loomed like a massive bastion on his right side and the forest sprawled, naked and wide on his left, angling slightly downward. It was empty. Frowning, Aragorn walked a little faster, straining for the sound again.

Something hard and small like a pinecone struck him neatly on the back of the head and he spun, swearing under his breath. The ranger rubbed the offended spot pointedly. "You might have picked a place that has not already suffered more than enough."

"Yes, but that got your attention did it not? I didn't know you knew words like that," Haldir appeared beside him as though he had stepped out of the earth, his grey cloak stirred lightly by a damp breeze.

"You could have just come in," Aragorn muttered, pulling his arms around himself for warmth. The woodland outside the enclosed hedge felt too open and his keen ears picked up small sounds in the brush, watchful eyes in the trees. Chiding himself for nervousness, he forced it aside. Haldir would not have called him out there if there was any danger. "Carlóme will want to hear your report herself."

Tension strained behind Haldir's eyes as though something inside him were strung taut, ready to snap with only a little more pressure added. He had seen the green-painted man enter the camp. "It is quieter out here and I can't stay long anyway."

Aragorn appraised his friend. He seemed calmer than yesterday, more like himself, but darker, somehow; his eyes still bore their hauntedness. "What news of Brenn?"

From the way Haldir hesitated he knew instantly the news was not good. He swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat and listened as the elf told him in scant detail what he had seen, the layout of where Brenn was kept. He didn't say much of what he'd been doing those three days and Aragorn didn't ask.

"Arenath has agreed to help me and we will get him out of there. Are the others ready?"

"Yes, though they don't know what they should be ready for."

"Arenath will lead Fedorian out for the night. They go hunting together. Our snares haven't been so lucky of late."

Aragorn frowned at the use of the word "our"—a slip Haldir hadn't intended to make and continued over.

"I want you to tell Carlóme to choose whichever two she likes—make them fast and lean—we need to do this swiftly. Have them meet me at the bridge at sunset."

Aragorn started to give a slow nod then stopped. "And what would you have the rest of us do?"

"You," Haldir said with careful emphasis. "will wait."

"I've been waiting for three days. I am tired of waiting. I am in fact an adult among my own kindred and no child to be shunted from one place to the other at the bidding of others."

"Others elder than you who know better," Haldir corrected. He didn't want the ranger anywhere near Fedorian should worse come to worst. "There is no reason for you to risk your life for this."

"Brenn is a reason."

"I will go with those freeing Brenn, just in case," Haldir said without acknowledging the ranger's comment as though every second spent in useless argument put them in graver danger. Which it did. "Now, once Brenn is free, take to the road—it is the quickest way. Take shelter in the inn until—"

"I'm not going to just leave you there!"

"—until I join you," Haldir finished firmly. "There is no time for argument, Estel, and I won't brook it. Not from you. Not now."

"How many times do I have to remind you that you can't order your friends and expect them to obey you like your recruits?" Aragorn planted a glare on the elf that would have done Lord Elrond proud.

"This isn't something I will negotiate, Strider," the use of his human name stung though Haldir had not raised his voice. "It never was."

Still fuming, Aragorn trampled his blossoming frustration. He knew they could very well stand arguing here all day until night came and neither of them would give an inch. It was an unfortunate symptom of being friends that you sometimes clashed with them. Especially if they happened to be bull-headed elf captains who insisted on treating you like a little boy playing at warrior.

"A group of hunters has joined us under a man called Branock. They're after the bounty."

Haldir paused, already half-turned. Something rippled over his profile but it was gone before Aragorn could decide what it was. Anxiety? Anger? "They must forget the coin. If I have my way, Fedorian won't be anywhere near you. Secrecy and silence will be the better allies in this."

"Huh, never would have thought I'd see this in all my days."

Outwardly Haldir remained the epitome of calm. He showed no sign of surprise when the man stepped out from his hiding place behind an old birch. Indeed he seemed almost to be expecting it. But the brightness in his eyes darkened in an eclipse as he nodded towards Branock's bound shoulder. "You have been well-tended I see."

"It hurts like some devil pierced me with a knife." He cast a sly glance at Aragorn. "That's a clever bit of work, Strider. So what's the arrangement? You keep the hunters off his trail while leading Car a merry dance to find him. Raking in a steady profit on both sides I bet. That's clever; wouldn't have thought you the deceptive kind." He laughed. "I guess that's the point isn't it? Not being suspicious."

"You have it wrong. Haldir is not the one you seek. He is helping us find the one who is."

Branock gave an exaggerated nod and wink though his regard had not left Haldir. "Right. The "ghost" out there. Car's no fool though. Believe me, she'll find out sooner or later and I'd rather not be you when she does. Give me a cut and she'll never hear a word of it from my lips. Though I understand why if you'd rather keep both for yourself…" The man's eyes dipped lower than the elf's face, smoothing over where his golden hair fell over his open collar and the longknife sheathed at his waist.

The Galadhrim captain bristled under such blatant observation. He crossed his muscular arms over his torso more to keep himself from reaching for his knife again than to intimidate the other.

Aragorn's hard, flat gaze flashed from his friend to the man's face but it wasn't he who spoke.

"Didn't I tell you to get going?"

Branock found himself sprawled on his back, a javelin butt grinding hard against his windpipe with Carlóme bending over him. He coughed and tried to push the instrument away but she only leaned down harder.

"You've gone soft in the head, Dark Car…" he croaked, still trying to wriggle free. "Course you always did go for a pretty fa—" His breath abruptly choked off.

"I saw the rogue myself, ass. It's not him," Carlóme thrust her belligerent chin in Haldir's direction. "My boy alive?"

The marchwarden's eyes were trained on the unsavory man. "For now. I have given Estel instructions for tomorrow. You had better let him up. He's turning blue."

Branock rolled out from under the weapon, coughing and gasping as he massaged the circular bruise already forming on his throat. He rubbed watery eyes as he glanced over at the dark woman who still looked all too ready to put the javelin back in him, point first.

"You let this demon in among your girls?"

"Let you in didn't I? Unlike others, he manages to keep his hands off them."

"Or maybe he doesn't like them until he's got a knife in 'em."

Aragorn stepped between the two combatants before things got even more out of hand. "This is doing no one any good. Obviously, there's a conflict of interest."

He addressed Carlóme pointedly in a low voice. "We want to get Brenn back alive and safe. You don't need any more enemies."

She didn't take her eyes from the grinning bounty hunter. "I don't want him anywhere near us."

"You go your way and let us go ours," Aragorn told the man who was still rubbing his throat pensively. He nodded with a small smile gracing his face.

"Fair enough. You're a fair-spoken deviant, Strider, if ever I saw one," his grin suddenly hardened. "But I've got the warrant and the signature of the town. That price is mine."

Haldir had been watching the exchange with something between surprise and wariness. Aragorn positioned himself between the two fighting parties, keeping his own concerns out of it and never once batting an eyelid or backing down. He seemed to have grown taller than either Carlóme or Branock and his voice was low and fervent when he spoke. He managed to convince both of them without having to raise even a finger.

With a slight jerk of his head, Branock stepped back from both of them, straightening his belt. As he did so, his eyes fell on the elf once more. His eyes glowed under the dye. But he didn't say anything more and soon slipped out of sight between the tree trunks.

Haldir waited until he could barely hear his footsteps. "Distasteful man."

"You're not wrong," Carlóme agreed, the mask creeping back over her eyes. She looked at him suddenly as though seeing him for the first time. "Did I hear aright what you said to that buzzard earlier? You stab him?"

"He attacked me," Haldir said, a trifle more defensively than he'd meant to.

"Next time you should kill him. He was admiring more than your knife, elf, you better watch it." She said. The unspoken concern behind the words seemed surprisingly sincere. Her eyes had lost their ferocity. "How's he look?"

It took him a second to realize she was talking about Brenn. "The sooner we get him out of there, the better."

"You need to go then."

Haldir nodded but hesitated a moment longer, his gaze finding Aragorn's. "I almost forgot." Silently and perhaps unconsciously asking for forgiveness for his harsh manner earlier, the elf touched Aragorn's elbow. "Bring your supplies with you. And my saber if you can spare it."

"I shall." Aragorn squeezed his friend's forearm back. "Take care of yourself, mellon nin. We will have both of you out in a few hours."

"Ilùvatar and luck willing." Shockingly it was Carlóme who whispered that under her breath as the elf took once more to the trees.

Time was running out.


	14. Dark as Drowning

It was a still dusk, the sun sinking beneath the pines in waves of crimson and blue strips. The bridge shone like a naked rib bent across the water, the grey stone glowing dirty-white through the brake. Aragorn crouched within sight of it, his breath fogging the air and legs tingling from the near-hour he'd spent kneeling on the earth, waiting for an unknown signal while the woodlands slowly lost form and cold shadows crept out of their hiding places. A movement behind him startled him.

It was only Zaren. The rakish thief looked as uneasy as Aragorn felt. Almost on knees and elbows, he stopped every few feet to check the bridge and the road before he made it to the ranger's side. "Any sign yet?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Nothing. Where are the others?"

Zaren waved vaguely across the road. "Saeryn and Kari say all's quiet. I left Miren, Yyrin and Narturi back with the horses. They found nothing but a couple of orc-prints—old."

The older man double-checked the knife secured in his boot for the third time, its edge glinting as he drew it out. He slipped it back in and grumbled, "I hate this waiting."

"It can't be much longer now. The sun's set." Secretly, Aragorn wondered what they would do if something had already gone wrong. Darting a quick glance both ways, he skirted the road and slid down the bank beside Carlóme who had stationed herself against the dry pillar where bridge met road. She was putting a new edge to her javelin.

"Your elf's late,"

"He'll be here." Aragorn leaned up slightly so he could see the bridge's farther end. Still nothing.

"You trust him to keep his word?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the needlepoint of her weapon. "You're sure he'd rather side with us than his friends? He left us fast enough and he wanted you to stay behind too. He doesn't seem to think you can take care of yourself. Or maybe he just wants you out of the way when he—"

"There he is."

The flicker came again, a tiny light flashing once, twice, steel reflecting the moon.

Without his grey uniform tunic, Haldir's face and hands hung disembodied from the night as he met them on the bridge's further end. He scowled as Carlóme, two steps ahead of Aragorn, ran up with Zaren and the others leading the horses more cautiously behind.

"I said bring two not the whole camp," he hissed at her.

"None of them were willing to stay behind," Carlóme shrugged. "You going to show us where Brenn is now or what?"

Haldir ran his eyes over the roughly-armed and white-faced group. They were afraid though few of these proud women would admit it. The only other male in the group besides Zaren and Aragorn, Yyrin, kept looking over his shoulder as though expecting to be attacked any minute. Clearly, thoughts of his butchered friend, Ral, were still fresh in his mind.

Looking at them, the marchwarden had to remind himself these were hunters by trade, not soldiers, not spies or trackers. What he wouldn't give for a handful of his Galadhrim right now.

He led them hurriedly off the bridge and with his knifepoint sketched a rough outline of the defile in the partially frozen earth. "Now, speed is key but also caution. Even if Fedorian is gone, there is still the danger of later discovery. We don't want him knowing where we've gone. There's a creek that runs past the defile, we can wade through that to cover our—"

"In the middle of winter? We'll freeze," Kari protested, already shivering.

Haldir didn't raise his head. "Would you rather freeze or Brenn die? It's neither deep nor for long. A few hundred yards. You'll live. Now, he's tied in an oak hollow near the center. It should be easy enough to get in there and get him out." If Arenath had kept his side of the bargain. "Then ride like the Hounds of Morgoth are on your tail until you reach the inn."

Carlóme rubbed the plan out with the base of her javelin. "Sounds good."

"You keep saying 'you'—are you coming with us?" Saeryn clutched her bow even more tightly.

"I will be going first," he said with a slight smile as Aragorn passed him his saber.

The going was rough and slow for they were battling through a part of the forest that no one went into any longer. The trees had sprung up to reclaim their territory. There were no clear paths or easy passages. For more than an hour, they slipped, scrambled and fought their way through clinging undergrowth, deep, wet trenches of brambles and coaxed the horses between trees and over fallen branches. Strange sights and sudden noises unnerved the hardiest of the hunters as darkness filled up the hollows. Yyrin's horse reared with fright when a cobweb caught in its mane and narrowly missed crushing Kari's head with its lashing hooves. At last, scratched, sweaty and anxious, they arrived at the creek.

Unfastening his saber to keep it clear of the water, Haldir tested the footing first. Stones shifted slimy and unsure underfoot. Ice-grey ripples lapped over his boots and rose up to his shins.

Yyrin froze at the waterside. His face bore a long gouge from a bramble patch and his eyes loomed large even in the darkness. He had been growing increasingly nervous the closer they approached elven territory. His ragged arms trembled wrapped around the slender blade he'd borrowed from Zaren. The man nearly jumped out of his skin when Aragorn touched his shoulder.

The ranger had noticed his unease. "Peace. You need to calm down. Don't worry. We're in this together. We'll protect each other."

The thin man shoved his arm off and whirled on him. "Like your friend protected Ral?" he hissed, his face close to the ranger's. "The only way we're safe is if we're dead."

"No one is going to die—if we stay together."

"We don't know where he is. He could be watching us right now. What's to stop him from killing us all? Gutting us like he did Ral," Yyrin licked dry lips and shook his head. Narturi squeezed his hand and tried to hush him but he threw her off.

"No! You all can go and chase ghosts all you want. I'm not going to stay and get killed."

Carlóme didn't pause as she plunged into the water after the elf. "If you want to go back alone fine. We're not stopping because you're too much of a coward to go forward."

"I'm not going to die. It's not worth it!" He bolted.

"Yyrin!" Narturi sprang for the hem of his cloak but Kari grabbed her and hauled her back.

"Let the coward go!"

Haldir shook his head as the man's skeletal form vanished into the undergrowth. There was nothing they could do. Fear sometimes won over the bravest hearts and those that weren't brave suffered worse.

Disheartened by the desertion, one by one the others waded into the creek, leaving double ripples in their wake. Soon all that was left of their passing was the swirling of the water and Yyrin's abandoned sword on the bank.

Yyrin stopped running after he'd left the creek and his one-time companions far behind him. The branches resisted and tore at him as he tried to escape their closing jaws. A tearing sound rent the air and he left several of his tunic buttons behind on a thorn patch. Bending over his knees, he paused, waiting for his lungs to loosen from the cramped cold. They had never really been friends anyway. Why should he risk his life for them? He was safer by himself anyway. He always had been. Feeling a little more reassured as he rationalized, he decided to wait just long enough to catch his breath. Thoughts of a warm inn and a pint of ale were already cheering his spirits. Let the fools chase ghosts! He was going to live.

Straightening as the stitch faded from his ribs, he struck out into the brush. He found an empty snare and kicked it contemptuously aside as he passed.

Something like a stray leaf smacked his chest. A wet, metallic taste burst beneath his lips, spilled over and soaked his shirtfront. It reminded him of the hot days laboring when Ral, joking, dumped the sheep's water bucket all over him so water dripped everywhere, down his torso. He looked down at his ruined tunic and saw the black handle growing out of his chest like a miniature sapling, twig lines of some darker substance trailing over the cloth. The dead leaves spun and faded around him as he floated.

A wolf, investigating the scent of fresh blood, crept out of the brush. The feral eyes, dilated with excitement, darted warily from its next meal to the russet-cloaked figure bending over it. A deep warning imprinted in the predator's mind rang uneasily; and, conceding defeat, the animal backed away.

Aragorn didn't notice the scarecrow figure at the top of the bank until the orc fired. His horse's neigh turned into a high-pitched scream as it reared back on its hind legs, the arrow fast in its breast. Aragorn was unprepared for the movement and his shoulder nearly wrenched out of its socket as his hand involuntarily tightened on the reins.

A crushing weight slammed into his chest as Maethor's heavy bulk bumped his shoulder breaking his hold on the bridle and flinging him headlong into the shallows. Through a watery haze, he thought he heard another twang and hooves flashed in front of his eyes not a foot from his head. A desperate grip latched under his arms and dragged him away from the horse who was thrashing in agony, another arrow sticking out of its throat.

The orc cackled, twanging the black-gut of its bowstring. "Dead horse meat, good meat. Fresh." Its red irises glittered wildly. "Poor meat. Little meat. Like little boy. Boy good meat too. Men lurking and creeping. Traps everywhere! Traps. Traps for meat."

"It's mad," Zaren hissed, his hand almost painfully digging into Aragorn's shoulder.

The orc's famine-hollowed face leered at them as it drifted closer to Maethor lying still in the shallows, an ape-like arm outstretched.

Saeryn's return arrow pierced its hand right through and it leapt up screeching. Aragorn's sword silenced it.

The others had scattered away from the dying horse and halted a little further upstream.

He was beginning to shiver in his wet clothes but he only shrugged aside Haldir's eyes which were boring into him urgently. With a curt nod, the elf took the lead again, faster now that the commotion had ruined any chance of secrecy.

They left the creek and approached the defile from its wooded edge which opened in front of them. The twisted trunks looked more sinister than ever in the stark moonlight stabbing through the umbrage, pooling the ground with darkness. Below, the brazier had gone out save for red ashes. The hollow looked empty.

"Quietly now," was all Haldir said as he drew his saber out.

"The rest of you stay with the horses. Zaren and I'll go with him," Carlóme ordered.

Like shadows, the two followed as he slipped into the hollow. Using every gnarled branch, root and enormous trunk for cover they took an outside course around the defile and circuitously made their way towards the oak that rose like a black beacon in the middle. Motioning Zaren and Carlóme back, Haldir approached first.

Brenn sat right where he had last left him on the little shelf inside the tree. He touched the boy's elbow first, pulling back a little when he flinched violently, a whimper muffled by the black cloth still audible to his ears.

"Shhh, don't struggle," Haldir gently worked the knot at the back of his neck and eased the hood off, peeling away the gag underneath.

As soon as his mouth was free, the boy spat on him. "Demon! You traitor! You hateful b—"

The elf captain clamped a hand over his mouth with a cursory glance at the darkness as he swiped a sleeve calmly over his cheek. "Carlóme and Zaren have come. Now I will release your mouth but do not spit on me again. Is that clear?"

The boy nodded against his palm and swallowed as the elf withdrew it.

Zaren, unable to stand it any longer, rushed towards the boy whose eyes glistened at his appearance.

"You've got yourself into a right fix, lad," he grunted roughly as he severed the ropes around the boy's wrists and ankles. "You look like a plucked chicken."

"Yeah, and that new scar on your gizzard is decoration," Brenn shot back though he winced when the older man put his arms around his shoulders.

"Quiet," Haldir still had his saber in his hand and was watching the edges of the defile. Something still didn't feel right. There should have been something… a snare… a trap…Fedorian wouldn't want his prey to escape.

Gently Zaren scooped the boy up in his arms, his tanned face creased with concern as he hefted the light weight. "Don't worry, lad. It's good food and a warm bed for you after this."

Carlóme crawled out of the brush and with surprising tenderness, ran the back of her fingers over Brenn's cheek when he met her with a bleary smile. "Come on. Let's get out of here." She was already halfway back when she stopped and looked over her shoulder.

"What are you waiting for?"

"Arenath should be here to meet us," Haldir did not stop scanning the defile even when Carlóme spun on her heel.

"What? Why?"

"I offered him clemency if he aided in Brenn's return."

"You did what?" the dark woman said, lowering her voice hastily.

"You would not have Brenn alive were it not for him."

"One good deed doesn't forgive him a lifetime—and more than that—of evil. We're going. You and I are going to settle some things, elf, when we get back to the inn."

Haldir's eyes rested momentarily on the boy who had his face pressed into Zaren's shoulder before flicking up to Carlóme. "Take him. I will stay a little."

"Your elf's a fool," the dark woman snarled to Aragorn when she and Zaren climbed back up the incline. "Waiting for that other one. He's going to get himself slain."

The others were already mounted and waiting, clearly cold and anxious to leave. Narturi especially kept glancing around, her young face sallow with fear.

"You coming with us or what?" Carlóme shifted in her saddle to face the ranger as Zaren settled Brenn in front of him.

Aragorn was chafing his arms for warmth but his eyes had not left the bottom of the hollow. He didn't want to leave Haldir alone out here. "I think I'll sta—" He trailed off and stiffened as he caught a glimpse of dark shapes moving in their direction from the opposite ridge. "Go. Go now."

Carlóme had seen them too. "Ride."

As he listened to their hoofbeats fading away, Aragorn's keen eyes narrowed, trying to discern the shapes slowly but stealthily creeping down towards the forest floor. They wore camouflaged vestments; and there were more than two. A flash of a green-painted face appeared between two trunks and Aragorn knew instantly. He leapt up to warn Haldir but had scarcely opened his mouth before something hit him hard from behind.

Knocked sprawling, Aragorn rolled a few yards down the incline until he was jolted to a stop by a dead trunk. He flipped onto his stomach to lever himself up but a hard weight like a boot ground against his spine, forcing him flat. When the chilling lethalness of a knife bit into his neck, he stopped struggling. His attacker did not speak but kept the blade steady against his jugular.

Arenath's fair face was creased with a mix of anxiety and apology as he stepped into the ranger's field of vision, his arrowpoint almost brushing the man's chin. His blue eyes darted from his shocked face up to the one holding him. He mouthed more than whispered. "I am sorry."

The hilt of the knife slammed down on the back of the ranger's skull and the dark came down.

Haldir heard the warning whistle a split second before he realized what it belonged to. Something smashed painfully into his shins and tangled in his legs, the momentum of the bolas throwing him off his feet. Waves of pain radiated upward as he struggled to unlace the weapon's leather thongs and stones. He groped for his dropped saber lying a yard away.

A scuffed-toed boot planted itself firmly on the weapon, sliding it once more out of his reach. He looked up and into Branock's smiling face.

"Well, now, I was hoping to find the boy," the mercenary chuckled darkly. "Looks like I got the better exchange there—I came looking for a sparrow and found a swan instead."

Ten men including their leader surrounded him. Several had already nocked arrows to their bows, the tips directed straight at the elf's prone body. They couldn't miss at this distance.

Branock crouched down until his eyes were level with the elf's. "Gave us a lot of trouble, your lot did. Almost missed you when you took to the water. Where'd Car go?"

"She is near. With the others."

Branock made a show of looking around. "I don't see them now. Fact is, I don't see anyone at all. Why would they leave you out here by yourself? It's dangerous, you know. Pretty things get hurt," the ill-meaning suggestion behind his words was unmistakable. Especially when his smile ripened into a leer.

A sudden rush of adrenaline surged through him. Kicking away the bolas, Haldir knocked Branock away and scooped his saber up in the same fluid movement. The blade arched to life in his hands. Its unsharpened edge cracked one of the archers between the eyes and took him out like a lightning-struck branch.

One of the hunters loosed a shaft with the intent to wound only to find the elf wasn't where he'd aimed. But next to him. He screeched and fell back, his bowstring severed and two of his fingers lying in the grass. The others fell back, startled by the ferocity of their quarry.

"Get that goblin-cleaver out of his hands, mates!" Branock, like all brave leaders, led from the back, shoving his men in front of him.

Haldir could keep them back for a time but he wouldn't kill them. He was not willing to stoop to that level yet, still afraid that if he did he would be no better than the murderer they assumed he was. That he thought he was. He held his own bravely but he was tiring, slower than his assailants but tiring nonetheless. They were more numerous than he and kept him occupied dodging arrows and short blades.

Four of them jumped on him. Borne down by sheer weight of numbers, he struggled furiously and suffered curses and jabs for it. Someone wrestled the blade out of his hands and another slipped a greased noose over his head and tugged chokingly tight. Swinging him around, his strangler had a grip on the neck seam of his collar which ripped jaggedly along one side.

As though the sound roused their bloodlust, they fell on him like wolves all at once, kicking and jabbing with whatever they could find. His head slammed into the ground only to be raised up and slammed into it again. A boot swung out of nowhere and connected with his side, making him gasp for air but he didn't even have a chance to inhale before a fist sank into his stomach, knocking the rest of his breath out of him. Blows were coming from all sides now. It was all he could do to try to curl up to protect his inner body and his face. But the second he tried to do so they jerked cruelly on the noose or pulled his legs out from under him to stretch him out again.

He didn't let a sound escape his lips while they beat him. Not even to defend himself. By this point there was nothing he could say that would stop their frenzy. They weren't asking for answers; they thought they had them all. Gold was already clinking into their pockets with every deliberate blow. They were careful not to hit his face. For identification purposes he supposed.

Not that he didn't fight. His hand lashed out, caught an ankle and tugged sharply heaving his weight behind it. His attacker came down on top of him, catching a few blows from his own comrades. Swearing, he threw them off.

"You orc-soured curs! Get him, not me!"

Haldir was already halfway to his feet but his legs threatened to buckle and his ribs felt crushed. He staggered against one of the men who thrust him back and swung a broken-off branch at his head. It clipped him hard enough to spin him around, his ears ringing. He fell to his knees again, jolting his already pained ribs.

"You're wrong," he rasped. "I am not the one you seek. I am with—" One of the men kicked him to silence him.

"An elf's an elf's an elf. Those idiot drunks in the town aren't going to know the difference anyway," Branock motioned for his men to back off. He didn't want their hard-sought quarry to die before they had a chance to drag him through Merdon in chains—or before they had their bit of fun. "He's a hot blood. I think we need to cool him off, boys. What do you think?"

Jeering and screeching like hyenas, they grabbed him up. Half-fainting from fighting for breath around the noose, he didn't resist when they seized him by arms and shoulders and dragged him up out of the defile. He didn't know where they were taking him until they dropped him.

The shock of the wintry water hit him like a reviving slap. He struggled to get his head up but cruel hands pinioned his arms and shoved him back under until his face scraped painfully against rocks in the shallow creek. Silence and rushing filled his eyes, his ears, his nose and mouth while bubbles escaped in streams.

Briefly, it flickered through his mind that he really had walked into it this time. He had been so concentrated on keeping Aragorn out of trouble, he hadn't watched where he himself was heading. The sandy stream bottom was beginning to glaze, little riplets of ice crusting the dark gold nimbus floating around his face. He watched the tendrils of his hair with fascination; they wavered and sailed past his vision like dappled sun rays… icy sun rays without warmth. Near-frozen liquid sucked down his throat. He was drowning.

Branock chuckled as he fished out his half-conscious prize like a drowned cat. "Such a dangerous enemy, our elf. Didn't you lose someone to him, Hooker?"

"Yeah," the pimply Hooker's face was sniggering though rigid with agony, his tunic wrapped around the gouting stumps of his severed fingers. "My great auntie's youngest nephew's cousin I think it was."

His leader's jaundice eyes narrowed with malicious laughter. "In you go then."

The road rippled cleanly out from the trees as the horses gathered on it. Carlóme glanced once around her group to make sure they were all still with her. "How's he doing Zaren?"

"Better if it weren't so cold."

"Carlóme…we can't leave them out there," Saeryn touched her horse's side with her knees to face her leader.

"They got themselves into it, they can get themselves out," the tawny woman said, dismissively flicking her reins but her eyes had dropped to the ground.

"That's not your way," Saeryn nudged her horse in front of Carlóme's to block the other woman's path. "You don't leave your friends behind."

"Who said they were friends?" the dark woman shot back as though affronted. "You're getting too mouthy for your own good, girl. If they want to take more risks, it's on their own heads. Not ours. My only worry is to get all of us back safe."

"Yyrin's not here," Narturi interrupted quietly.

"Nor is he likely to be," Glad for the distraction, Carlóme maneuvered her horse around Saeryn's and pressed into a trot. "Probably already back at the inn guzzling ale and telling his other farm boys how brave he was."

Saeyrn did not move. Wheeling her horse around, she called at her leader's back. "I will go back for them even if you won't."

Carlóme jerked her reins short and swiveled in her seat to glare at the Gondorian woman who stared back calmly, her chin upraised.

"You always think you can save everyone." The Haradrim woman looked at Zaren who unnecessarily adjusted the cloak wrapped around Brenn's shoulders. He looked up when his leader addressed him as she wheeled her horse around.

"Zaren, get them back to the inn."

They forced him under over and over and over again until he lay limp and unresponsive in the ice and bank mud. They'd kept him under so long last time he was still coughing up red-tinged wavelets. Haldir didn't realize he was blacking out until he found himself lying on his back with a rain of stinging blows being aimed at his face to bring him round again.

"Wake up, there," Branock cuffed him twice more until he opened his eyes blearily. "That's better. Want you awake for this—for a bit longer anyway."

The elf's cheeks were hot from the blood-raising slaps, his golden hair drenched and plastered over his shoulders. His chest heaved with a weak cough, water spilling from between his lips.

Hooker was standing back a little and cradling the elf's saber with his unmaimed hand. He'd gotten blood on it and was trying to polish it off. "Bet these lockets are gold. Bit of cleanin'…it'll make a nice addition to my collection."

One of his companions eyed the fine weapon and shoved him, forcing him to drop it. "And who says you get to decide who gets what?"

"Shut up! Both of you!" Branock growled. "We'll sort that out later. Pile it up on the bank here. I'll decide who gets what." Kneeling beside his captive, he slid his hands over the elf's torso and loosened the leather belt. His fingers touched the longknife. His horrible grin stretched the boundaries of his face. "But I'll get to taste the best prize first."

He ripped off the belt and added the knife too.

"Any fight left in you?" The lecherous human cupped the strong chin and drew it up so he could look into those eyes, eyes he had once thought so frightening, so probing. They were mere slits now, dulled and detached. There was nothing in them. "Didn't think so. But just in case…"

"Pass me my belt," he ordered one of his men without taking his eyes off the elf's. The snakeskin whispered over his palm as he sorted through the pouches and drew out a stained rag and a frighteningly familiar vial. Harsari. The man saw recognition flash in his captive's eyes and shook the green bottle lightly.

"Car really should watch where she keeps her dark juices." He poured a measure over the cloth. "You won't be able to thank her for this, but I'll make sure I do personally for you—after I'm done with you that is."

He clamped the rank-smelling cloth over his prisoner's mouth and nose. Haldir held his breath and struggled wildly. But others grabbed his arms firmly and an unseen blow hit him square in the midsection, crushing the air out of him once more. Automatically he inhaled. The world lurched almost instantly into brownness. The pain was not as intense as when Carlóme had first mistaken him for Fedorian and stabbed him with a poisoned needle but inhaling it obliterated all sense of awareness.

His sense of smell was the first to return; the bitterness of the drug and the earthy, moist one of grass and mud tasting at the back of his throat. Disorientation rattled him as he tried to gather his jumbled bearings. He knew he couldn't have been out for longer than a minute or two because he could still hear the men talking and moving around above him.

"—no fun if he's asleep."

"Shouldn't be long."

"I want to go first."

"You'll go when I tell you."

He was lying on his stomach, his hands wrenched back and corded behind him. Rough hands touched his bruised ribs. A thrill of panic shook him fully awake. Rolling over, he lashed up like a snake, ignoring the burn that raced up his chest at the movement. Branock caught the elf's forehead right in the center of his face; the audible crack of bone dwarfed by his roar of agony.

They punished him mercilessly for that act of self-preservation and by the end of the next bout he was bleeding from nose and chin, cut and reeling from punches he knew he would feel tomorrow. If he lived long enough that is. This was not a way he would have chosen to die. But if he had to seek Mandos' Halls now, he would do so fighting for all he was worth and prayed the Lord of the Dead would ease his passing.

A glow lit in his eyes. Branock caught sight of it and for the first time looked unsure as he pressed a grimy hand to his nose. "Hooker, Macon, make sure those binds are tight will you. Don't want him getting uppity again."

"He might break more than your face next time," Hooker chortled, earning himself a sharp clout across the ear.

"Just for that, you're not touching him."

After his men made sure the bonds were nearly cutting off the elf's circulation, the mercenary approached again, kneeling astride him so he was pinned firmly to the grassy floor. He hadn't bothered to stop the blood flowing from his nose. It dribbled over his lips and onto the elf's neck and collar. This was the culmination of the hunt for him; and he hadn't had the pleasure of a quarry this exciting for some time.

"You took every blow we gave you." The man brushed back the long tendrils letting them slide between his fingers like sifting gold. His breath was coming faster now, whistling in and out through a collapsed nostril. "I always heard the Firstborn were beyond fair. I didn't know it was this powerful. I wonder if you'll last a few days." He wandered down the exposed throat now, not squeezing. His other fingers tangled in the golden hair and twisted it around his wrist, yanking the supple neck back.

"Since we need only your head, they're not gonna care what we do with the rest of you."

One of the men was looking doubtful and fidgety as he watched his chief work the catches on their bounty's tunic one-handedly. His eyes kept passing over the trees. "Bran, come on. Not here. Didn't one of Car's band say there was more than one of them?"

"If he was going to show up, he would have by now. He would've protected his friend," Branock's face grew ugly and dark as he deliberately gave the noose a sharp tweak. "Isn't that right? Your friend's not going to show up. His loss, he's going to miss out on the fun." The green-painted dye had begun to run with sweat streaks.

Haldir closed his eyes, releasing his mind to drift over the stream. He felt surprisingly detached from what was happening as though it were happening to someone else, someone he couldn't see or hear. He didn't feel his arms going numb beneath him or taste the blood in his throat. The coarse laughter of the men didn't register in his mind. He was already half gone. The harsari made it easier to float.

A sudden murmur rose among the men like the humming of bees. The weight left his legs. Hooker who had been sneaking towards the bounty pile passed in front of Branock, and fell, an arrow through his throat. Haldir only saw him topple out of the corner of his eye. Everything else was chaos. He heard the whine of an arrow and another cry. Something glinted bright in his vision before a heavy weight tripped over him and fell across his chest. Branock gaped, his face frozen in a permanent, agonizing leer. His body convulsed and rolled off the elf as Carlóme jerked her javelin free.

The dark woman's face was beyond wrathful as she brandished it at the men who had leapt away from her ferocious charge. "Who wants to die with him?"

Saeryn knelt a few yards behind her, an arrow grimly set to her bow. She took aim at first one man than the other. They weren't going to wait around for her to fire and took to their heels, splashing through the creek and up the further bank, leaving their slain companions and leader on the bank.

It took Haldir a while for his mind to absorb back into his raddled body. His various bruises, cuts and aches bled into the edges of his sharpening consciousness. Everything seemed too bright and hard. Vibrations pulsed under his ear from the sound of the men's retreat, receding until all he heard was lapping water. Pressing his cheek to the cool, flattened grass, he found himself staring into Branock's vacant gaze, the glittering eyes smooth and empty as carapaces.

A sharp sawing motion against his wrists made his head swing back up. Carlóme cut him free and tossed the ropes into the water. She leaned over him as blood surged back into his fingertips and pried off the stiff noose still wound tight; the wire had left a gleaming ligature all around his throat.

"Can you walk?"

His eyes snapped open. He hadn't realized he'd closed them. Her question was slow to filter through his numbed mind and when he figured out what she was asking, he considered it carefully. He was too tired to move but somehow without knowing how he got to his feet under him. The vertical position made his head swim and he nearly buckled. It stung to breathe. He opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was a hoarse croak and a little more water.

Saeryn stared at the arrow that had gone a full half-length into Hooker and pinned him to the earth. "I did not loose this," she whispered, touching the spiral-fletched shaft. Her gaze spanned across the water.

"You're lucky we got here when we did," Carlóme prodded Branock's limp corpse into the creek and talked to avoid looking at him. "Thought we'd run into Strider first but he must have gone after Zaren and the rest..."

"He's shaky, Carlóme," Saeryn rested a tentative hand on the elf's arm. His face was smoothly bland and he still hadn't said anything. He flinched a little when she took his arm and drew it over her shoulders. The Gondorian woman's usually serene face was utterly sober as she let him settle his weight on her. Months of hard labor in the South had strengthened the lithe muscles in her back.

"Take his other side won't you?"

The dark woman hesitated. Obviously, she didn't think much of the idea and kept looking at him blankly as though this sudden loss of strength on his part disturbed her. Then with astonishing indifference, she switched her javelin to her other hand and bolstered him up awkwardly with her unoccupied arm. She was several inches taller than Saeryn and he more so than both of them.

Haldir couldn't even mentally scold himself for needing the support he was so worn out. They led him back towards the path. It was an indescribably long journey. Dark fatigue seeped out of the frozen earth and twined around his ankles, sneaking up his calves and into his chest, soaking into his mind until his body felt like lead. His bruises stiffened and made breathing even more difficult. They walked for what seemed like forever while his steps grew more and more faltering, almost all of his weight now balanced between the two women on either side of him.

In the dark haze between semi-consciousness and not, he surfaced briefly.

"Where's…Strider?"

Aragorn awoke in the dark with head pounding as though his brain was trying to break out of his skull. This was the second time in three days that he'd been knocked unconscious. He was lying on the frozen earth on his side, his cheek pressed against a bony root. He cut back a groan clawing up his throat though he knew his captor already had sensed his reawakening. Aragorn's skin crawled as a razor-sharp blade slid up his ribs just brushing the skin without leaving a mark. The warning, however, was unmistakable. Aragorn kept carefully still though his arms were aching from the awkward position they'd been wrenched into. Dried blood caked above his left eyebrow.

His kidnapper made no other move towards him though. He was, oddly, staring at the stars, his head thrown back as he searched the vault of heaven. But no starlight shone on this night, even the moon was swathed in cloud. A quiet voice sighed, a soft exhale of breath that fogged in the chilly air.

"Elbereth…is not here tonight. But why should She be?" he offered the young man a smile that might have passed for rueful on any other face. "I have no right to invoke that name do I? There is no starlight in my life."

Aragorn had to strain his head up to watch him, not daring to take his eyes off the shadowed figure though it made the side of his head ache even more.

"Did he tell you he was innocent, little one? Haldir."

The ropes binding the man's hands behind his back creaked audibly but his captor made no move to check them, as though he knew the young man could not escape.

"He has killed before, make no mistake."

"He is not like you," despite his danger, Aragorn could not help the defiant words ripping out of his mouth. His muscles automatically clenched, awaiting a blow.

It didn't come. Instead, the most shocking sound the ranger had heard all night erupted from his captor's lips.

Laughter. Like crystalline icicles, it prickled the ranger's skin and made fearful beads of sweat stand out on his brow and drip into his matted hair. The young man shivered as cold fingertips slid up his jaw to his temples in an odd sort of caress, like a blind man seeking a picture of a face.

"Oh, so young. So innocent. You really have no idea do you?"

Aragorn tried to think as those cold fingers pressed on his hammering temples. "He is a soldier. His actions have reasons."

"So do mine. Reasons, perhaps, that you cannot understand. But that is not what you are saying is it? You are saying, I lack reason. I am reasonless. Therefore, I am mad." Another, odd little chuckle as the hands released him and grasped his chin instead, forcing the young man to meet his eyes.

"If you are not mad, then what are your reasons? Why did you…why did you do …things…to those men?" Aragorn almost choked on the question, the reality of his own predicament painfully realized in the cords around his wrists and ankles. Nevertheless the still-rational part of his mind that had not shut down from fear reasoned the longer he kept the other talking, the longer he would survive. He could give Haldir time…

His captor cast him a sardonically condescending glance as though he knew every thought that passed through the ranger's blurry consciousness. "He never forgave them for what they did to him, did he? Did he ever tell you?"

Aragorn shook his head.

Eyes glittered without moonlight to reflect in them as a thin hiss revealed the knife unsheathed again. "I am beyond forgiveness. Which makes what I'm going to do to you perfectly within my limits."

As the shadow released his chin, Aragorn let it drop back to the ground, shuddering with desperate horror. He knew exactly what his captor was going to do to him.

Now all he needed to know was how long he was going to suffer before the other granted him the mercy of death.


	15. Suffocating in the Smoke of Ghosts

Waning moonlight slanted through the narrow, grimy windowpane and lit up the porcelain basin. It had a long crack in it curving down through the bottom and a chip taken off the left-side rim. Some clumsy maid or more likely a drunken inmate had knocked it over after a night's bout. He hadn't seen any maids, just the servers in the scullery. He also hadn't washed the dried blood off his face. He hadn't wanted to do or think about anything in particular since reaching the inn less than an hour ago.

He had removed his torn shirt and taken his time in the room Fabor had generously provided, even rebraiding his hair back into its familiar pattern. Zaren and the others had seen him come in and were waiting in the common room. But he still felt too drained and shattered at the moment to think about confronting them right now without knowing what Carlóme might have told them. He needed to gather up the pieces first.

A half-empty wine bottle lay within easy reach, courtesy of the dark woman who'd said he was welcome to the rest. Beside it, the basin was full to the brim and sparkling. He broke into a fresh sweat. The water was soft and warm but his lungs still shrank from it. His throat still burned with cold. He quaffed a mouthful straight from the bottle to warm it. The spiderline crack quavered as he cupped his hands beneath the shining surface.

He barely wet his face. Just enough to get the blood crust off.

Dumping the remainder down the drain, he wearily let his hands rest palm flat on either side of the basin, pushing hard to still his fingers' trembling. He hadn't had shaken this badly since the harsari wore off the first time. Luckily Zaren had left horses on the road for them. He knew he would never have made the walk. The ride alone had not pleased his injuries. The aches, the weariness and sense of loss had all caught up to him at last and now he felt too tired to even dredge up the energy to move towards the bed. Instead he stayed there leaning against the counter, staring into the blank porcelain forgetfulness for as long as he could, keeping the shadows at bay and the dark realizations from coming to the surface.

A timid knock broke his concentration.

He wasn't ready to face the others yet. Especially when all of them were not there.

Aragorn.

At the time he had registered only vaguely that the ranger was not with them on the long ride back. Now that his head was a little clearer, he realized he had not seen him at all. Aragorn would have been the first one to come barging into his room after what had happened tonight, even if it was only to yell at him for his stupid risk-taking that had gone so horribly awry…

He recoiled from the stream. He couldn't deal with that yet. One thing at a time and the most important first. What had happened to Aragorn?

The timidity of the knocker was apparently evaporating as harsh raps began to rain on his door.

Fed up with the noisy persistence of his visitor, Haldir finally thumped his wine down, and flung the door open.

"What?" He was rather surprised by the croak in his voice. His throat was still sore.

If Saeryn was startled by the brusqueness of his greeting, she didn't show it as she bustled past him with an armload which she dumped on his bed. "Fabor had some ice left from the cold stores. I thought you could use it." She set a cloth and bowl with already-slushy ice chips on the small night table.

He nodded his thanks.

Clearing her throat briskly, she picked up another bundle from the bed and handed it to him. "It's a rather hurried job but it's the best I could do in so short a time."

She had mended his tunic for him, the collar firmly but hastily stitched back on. There were blood spots on it nearly invisible against the dark cloth. She tried not to stare at the mottled discolorations arranged over his back, chest and shoulders like a second shirt as he tugged the tunic gingerly over his head. The hobnailed imprint of a boot heel shadowed on his ribs before the fabric hid it.

An awkward moment passed in which he kept his eyes studiously directed at the floor while she looked at him with an odd mixture of anxiety, fear, and sympathy (all three of which he would not have appreciated had he bothered to look up). She opened her mouth as though to say something then perhaps decided his pride had already been battered enough and wrapped some of the ice in a rag.

"Here." When he made no move to take it from her, she leaned slightly forward to press it against his face.

"This is exactly what I did not want to happen."

"Hold still," she said, her brow knitting. "At least we got Brenn out. He's safe and home that's all that matters."

"No, it's not."

She drew away slightly, looking up at him before quickly dropping her eyes. Her thin fingers twisted and clenched around the rag that was beginning to drip on the floor, leaving clear spots in the dust. "You really should be sitting down. I'm surprised you're even stand—You shouldn't be so tall." She stopped.

He tilted his head at her but did as asked and sat at the foot of the bed. He watched her bowed head for a long time. She didn't approach him again, her hands still fiddling with the cloth and her eyes fixed on the narrow window behind him. Her eyes were haunted. He could guess what she was thinking. Seeing him by the stream must have reminded her not a little of her own ordeal as a slave woman among the Haradrim, used for pleasure or profit, beaten into submission by threat of death or worse.

His stomach twisted again and he closed his eyes. Abruptly getting up from the bed, he retrieved his wine bottle.

Saeryn watched him.

"How else were you—?" Her voice was a low gasp as though she like Carlóme had trouble getting the words out. "H—how do you feel?" She faltered desperately. Carlóme had dealt with Branock before she could so she hadn't seen his condition until the men were gone.

Thinking it a little too rakish and desperate to drink from the bottle in her presence, he fished around until he found a small, chipped cup with a pattern the mirror of the basin. He swallowed a long draught. "I can't say my opinion of men is much improved."

She shook her head when he offered her the bottle but still waited for a real answer.

"My only injuries are bruises." It was true enough for what she was asking.

The blank rigidity seemed to drain out of her face and she sighed long. "Good," she whispered it like a prayer. Maybe it was. Abruptly remembering her task, she bent forward again.

"I didn't kill them."

She didn't know why she heard what sounded like relief in his voice and decided to ignore it. "You don't have to come to the common room tonight; in fact, Carlóme said it would probably be better if you didn't."

He didn't know what to make of that statement so he asked something else, "How is Brenn?"

"Sleeping. He looks better than you at least." Saeryn's frown deepened as he shifted again.

"Small favors."

That coaxed a twitch from her lips. "Stop squirming!" she chided, fed up with trying to play chicken with his swollen jaw. She snagged his chin firmly between thumb and forefinger and tugged it down to her eyelevel. "Now, hold still."

He pulled away again almost instantly with a remonstrating glare. "That hurts."

"It'll hurt worse when I thump you with this because you won't hold still. You're lucky they didn't break your jaw," she said, the audible grind of her teeth loud in his ears. "Now stop acting like a child and let me tend it."

That stilled him and she snatched the opportunity to firmly compress the cold cloth to his face. It soothed the dull ache and he gradually let her have her way. Methodical though with a slight air of embarrassment, she checked him over, frowning as she delicately pressed against his side, exploring the heaviest bruises she'd seen earlier.

"There isn't much I can do for these. That crack in your ribs you took a few days ago wasn't helped. It ought to be bound up again," Saeryn said with all the patience of a healer as he shifted restlessly again. "You're lucky it didn't turn to a real break. It's strained enough though and that's why you've been having trouble breathing—oh, I know you have. I can hear it even if you don't admit it."

She smeared a cool, minty-smelling ointment around his throat for the painful groove left by the noose, purposefully ignoring his irritated grumblings.

He subsided sullenly when she finished. He didn't like being fussed over. "Can I go to sleep now, Nana?"

She smiled with strained forbearance and fondness. "Yes, you may, tithenion, sleep will do you do some good."

He pretended to turn down the bed so she wouldn't see how her calling him "little one" when she knew perfectly well he was more than a hundred times her senior amused him. But he did hear her pause on the threshold, the door open on her palm. "If you have need of anything else, just ask. I'm down the hall."

"I will not but thank you."

The door shut softly behind her.

Haldir waited until he heard her footsteps recede down the corridor. The last items on the bed she had not touched. He picked up his worn saber from the bed and ran his hands over it. Someone had thoughtfully cleaned it for him and slid it back into its dented sheath still attached to his belt beside his knife. He stowed them under the bed. Muscles aching with quiet tension, he repositioned the flat, musty-smelling pillows. Though he was beyond tired, he didn't feel like sleeping just yet.

A moment's rifling in his satchel was all he needed and he was out the door.

Down the hall, he could see the bare gleam of firelight from under the double doors of the common room and a murmur of quiet voices too indistinct to make out. After poking his head into one or two empty rooms, he found the one he was looking for and edged inside, half-shutting the door behind him.

A sliver of light from the vigil-lamp in the hall fell across the narrow but comfortable-looking bed and the gangly shape enfolded in blankets. Brenn lay with his head facing the round window, one hand, the one with the splinted fingers, lay curled up on top of the covers. A pestle and the remnants of a strong-smelling paste on the bedside table accounted for his almost comatose-like state. Haldir did not take the little stool provided but instead walked to the window and stood looking out.

It was late. So late he couldn't see the moon. The inn yard was dark and muddy, beginning to puddle from the rain just starting to fall. He watched the tiny droplets of moisture trail down the window, replaying the day's events over again in his mind.

There had been no traps, no attempts to stop them. It had been too easy. In his more than lifetime's worth of battle experience, nothing was left to luck and they had. Maybe they had not been caught because Arenath had kept his word and led Fedorian away as he'd promised. But even he knew that was a long shot for a hope. Arenath had never been able to lie to Fedorian; and Fedorian had known about his, Haldir's, treachery at least, surely he would have done something to stop them…

Unless…

Unless his aim wasn't to keep Brenn. But to get someone else.

Haldir's shoulders bowed until his forehead rested against the cool, damp glass. There was nothing he could do tonight and the sheer helplessness of knowing that frustrated him to no end. But depriving himself of sleep wouldn't save Aragorn any faster.

Zaren gave a huge, grunting snore from where he sat propped up in an armchair in the corner. The noise jolted the elf who glanced at him. But the man merely pushed his face deeper into the cushion, his mouth slightly agape.

Recalling the reason he had come in the first place, Haldir drew out the object he had removed from his satchel. It was the small knife Brenn had won from him. The triumphant joy on the boy's face seemed like a lifetime ago when he looked at the thin, sallow cheeks. The blade was clean again and now restored to its rightful owner. He laid it beside the pestle where Brenn would be sure to find it when he woke.

The exhaustion that had been tugging insistently all night finally overcame him. Too tired to seek his own room, he borrowed a spare pillow off Zaren's armchair and tossed it to the floor, stretching himself out underneath the window. The music of the rain helped lull him and soon, despite all thoughts to the contrary, he was as deeply asleep as Brenn. So he never heard the door creak open a while later and a brief shadow fall across the floor.

Nor did he see the woman's tawny, rain-lit face as she flung a blanket over him.

Wet beads slithered grey and cold down Aragorn's cheeks, trickling off the ends of his hair and into his shirt. He lifted his head, letting the tiny rivulets wash the blood off his forehead, and soothe the trip-hammer throbbing inside his skull. He opened his mouth a little trying in vain to catch a stray drop on his tongue. He had had nothing to eat or drink since before they set out to rescue Brenn. At least he thought that had been hours ago. He had been able to gauge time only by a glimpser or two of the moon until the clouds swelled in.

He was still lying where his captors had dropped him and his spine felt permanently grooved by the rock digging into it. His hands had gone numb from both the bonds and the cold. His clothes were still wet from being knocked in the creek and the rain didn't help. However, it had done one good thing. The wet had made his bonds loose and pliable. He rolled over onto his other side, uncovering the sharp rock that had been boring into his back. Almost holding his breath, he desperately pried the jagged tip into the knot.

It was difficult, slow work for the stone edge slipped off the soaked flax; and he kept checking over his shoulder every few seconds, expecting to see the elves return. He kept at it until his wrists were sore and raw with struggling. Little by little, the knot began to ease apart and finally loosened enough for him to slip his hands free.

With stiff, clumsy fingers, the hobbles on his ankles took a few more difficult minutes than he would have liked. His first attempt at standing failed. His muscles refused to respond save with cries of pain as they adjusted from lying in one spot for so long. But the thought that Fedorian might soon return with some fresh horror gathered his wits and strength and he pushed himself into an upright position, using the tree to steady himself. Once there, he didn't waste a minute. This part of the forest was unfamiliar to him; he had no supplies, no means for warmth. But he didn't care. All that mattered was to get out of here as fast as he could.

Picking a direction, he bolted.

Barely fifty yards from the camp, an elf stepped out of the trees directly in front of him. Aragorn skidded to a halt, his boots almost sliding out from under him.

Arenath looked almost as surprised to see the ranger as Strider was to see him.

Aragorn let out a shaky, relieved breath and offered the elf a smile, glad to see the face of an ally in all this, even if it was an uncertain allegiance. Maybe without Fedorian's influence, Arenath would help him, get him some supplies or tell him which direction the road lay in.

But Fedorian's partner was no longer looking at him and instead stretched the bow Aragorn hadn't seen until now. The wicked arrow tip pointed directly at the ranger's chest.

He took an automatic step back, bewildered, and held up his hands. "I don't understand."

"You cannot leave."

A stab of panic shook the man's composure. Surely Arenath wasn't going to—? "Why are you doing this? Haldir trusted you."

A wince or perhaps a fleeting shadow caused by the wavering branches flashed over Arenath's face.

Aragorn pressed his plea while still keeping his hands upraised and his eyes alert for other movement. Maybe he could convince Arenath to let him go before Fedorian came…"You don't have to do this. You said so yourself you don't like what he's doing.

I give you my word Haldir and I both will make sure no one will harm you. Please, don't—"

"You are right. You do not understand." Arenath interrupted. He motioned with the bow and Aragorn, knowing the elven barb would find him before he could think of making a break for it, turned back towards the camp with a plunging heart.

"I know of men's promises, human, and I know just easily they can break them."

Aragorn could not look back at the freedom that had almost been his. His voice held resignation but not yet hopelessness. "You were never really going to help us. It was all a lie."

"Do not tell me I went back on my word," Arenath's normally soft voice held an edge to it. "I did all I could! But I cannot…forget…I do not know how Haldir does it. Especially after today."

Aragorn's stomach surged up. He'd forgotten his friend in his desire to escape. Now that there seemed little hope of that, all his former worry rushed back. So disturbed was he by the implication in Arenath's words that he fell still and let the elf bind his hands again.

"What do you mean? What happened?"

Arenath cast a quick glance over his shoulder. "After you were… rendered senseless, I stayed. I watched them. Men came." There was no emotion in his voice though he kept his eyes away from the human and continued to whisper out of the side of his mouth.

"He fought well but they outnumbered him nine to one," For the first time his voice faltered, "They—they were very cruel. They are always cruel."

Aragorn's mouth went even drier. He remembered all too well what Branock had promised—one way or the other he would take an elf head. Even if that head was not that of the killer. He didn't want to ask what happened but he didn't need to for Arenath kept going.

"They were going to kill him…eventually. They were so close to him…I—I couldn't let them—I hid close to the bank. The arrow meant for their leader hit another but before I could loose again, two others burst out of the brush and slew them. One of them was the Haradrim woman if that comforts you."

Aragorn silently recanted every ill thought or word he had ever had about Carlóme. "Then Haldir is all right?" he pressed.

"I did not stay." Turning his head, he stared right at the human, his blue eyes anything but inscrutable, and dropped his voice even lower. "It wasn't worth it to run. And you should not have. He will know and I do not want to see what he will do to you."

Cold filled the young man's chest. "What—?"

A soft rattle alerted them to a newcomer. Arenath spun on his heel to meet Fedorian as the older elf appeared in the camp, a brace of hares and a hunting bow in one hand, a sack dangling from the other. His gaze darted between the two of them, taking in Arenath's bow and Aragorn's raw, retied wrists.

"Has there been a problem?"

Arenath cast a fear-laden glance in Aragorn's direction. "He tried to run, sir."

"I see," Fedorian set down the sack and opened it. "I suppose it is well then that I retrieved these." He withdrew lengths of rusted chain with manacles on the end. Aragorn forced down the bile in his throat. He recognized them as the same ones he and Brenn had found on that old stone, the one where Carlóme had granted her brother a last mercy.

"Do you recall how errant soldiers were once punished, Arenath, if they broke the word-laws of their commanders?" He addressed his confederate almost playfully.

Arenath held his tongue, his eyes widening. Apparently, he knew.

The links slid musically through long, pale hands as Fedorian doubled them up, answering his own question. "They were whipped. But not at first. No, they were made to wait, wait until the fear of threat of pain almost overrode their fear of the actual pain itself. But I am not that cruel. I won't make him wait."

Aragorn swallowed hard but he couldn't move the lump that had suddenly decided to take up residence in his throat. Pleadingly, he looked at Arenath who slowly detached himself from the ranger and picked up the hares Fedorian had left in the middle of the clearing. He didn't like playing his friend's sick games.

"Arenath."

The smaller elf stopped short at his commander's soft voicing of his name but he didn't turn as though expecting what was about to be said and wishing with all his heart he could run from it.

"Prepare him will you?" Fedorian continued, swinging the chain idly, forward and back, forward and back, its doubled-up end almost brushing the man's chest.

With agonizing slowness, Arenath turned back around and, keeping his head down and eyes averted, he grabbed up Aragorn's bound wrists and looped them over a low, overhanging branch. He retightened the knots with a jerk and stepped back still without lifting his face. Aragorn was too shocked and numb too struggle.

"Come now. You're not finished. You know I only ask you to do this. Do it properly," Fedorian prompted, his voice still musically gentle but his eyes were hard and glaring as the elf under his gaze scurried back towards the prisoner.

Arenath took out a knife.

Though the temperature was dropping, sweat stood out on Aragorn's brow. He kept trying to catch Arenath's eyes but the elf was well-practiced in avoidance at all costs.

The knife slit his tunic open from collar to hem, the tough fabric splitting with a ghastly ripping noise, taking what little warmth he'd had. Painfully cold air struck Aragorn's bare chest. He couldn't help the gasp that escaped his lips and tensed in his chains though the knife snicked his abdomen.

Arenath threw the blade aside.

"Hannon le," Fedorian brushed his shoulder as he passed but Arenath shrugged him off.

The man's feet dangled almost off the ground and the strain on his shoulders hurt but nothing unbearable. Defiant even though he was unbearably aware of his position, Aragorn said, "It doesn't matter what happens to me, Brenn—"

The open-handed slap snapped his head sharply against his bound arm, his mouth tasting of metal fillings.

"No, no, no," Fedorian directly addressed Aragorn for the first time. His eyes had lit up, a dark burn like shuttered lamps. "Do not speak to me in my own tongue, ranger, don't you dare. That beautiful tongue is too high an honor for your lips. Speak to me, if you must, in your language. I will understand."

Aragorn pressed his bleeding tongue to the roof of his mouth. He hadn't even realized he'd been speaking Sindarin, it came so naturally to him. Fedorian's unintentional barb wrung another pang from his already aching chest. Elvish had been the first language he'd ever spoken in. It reminded him of Rivendell's singing glades, his brothers' ribald jokes, and his father's warm laughter. The language of Men, while he was capable enough in it, felt unfamiliar, and harsh to his ears. It forced him to remember where he was not.

"Brenn is gone. You can't hurt him anymore."

"It wasn't the boy I wanted." Fedorian reached up and wrapped a slender-fingered hand around the ropes trapping Aragorn's left wrist and twisted them idly. "You are not like the others. They offered me land… coins of little worth… their daughters! Anything so that they might live. Will you do the same, little one?"

Aragorn didn't lift his head. He didn't want to look at those eyes. "I have nothing to my name."

"Have you no fear?"

Fedorian never looked away while he spoke, not once. The very intense directness of his gaze, when many others would have glanced away to lessen the force of their stare, made Aragorn queasy. It called to mind a wolf, the undeniably predatory gaze that visualized the leap-for-the-throat, the teeth closing, the blood gush before he even sprang.

"I am terrified," he replied, honestly enough. "But I was always told that fear is greater when the heart quails." If he could pretend he was unafraid, unafraid he would be.

Fedorian's expression did not change but his head tilted a little more to one side. "Haldir told you that? He always was an avid student. Perhaps later I will instruct you in other lessons he learned so well."

A glitter of steel leapt to the elf's hand. "Have you ever been tortured, master ranger?"

The chains still swung, just barely touching the man's chest but the very lightest brush of the instrument of pain was enough to make Aragorn shrink away.

"I assure you there will be a plateau, eventually, where you will feel very little. Although it rather depends if your body freezes first or not. I do almost wish Haldir were here. I wonder if he would find justice in this."

"He is not like you."

Fedorian's smile sharp edged. "Are you so certain of that? He has been alive for far many more years than you, little one. He has done things that would make you ashamed of him, of which—I have no doubt—he has not told you. So many secrets. Did he tell you he slept here? Ate here with us? It was you I wanted and he brought you."

"No, I brought myself." Aragorn knew he should dismiss the elf's cruel words out of hand. But somehow he couldn't shake the memory of Haldir's haunted eyes after he'd put a knife in Branock.

"How has he been sleeping of late?" Fedorian changed tactics. "He only stayed here two nights. Did he have nightmares in your camp as well? Did he wake and not know where he was? I found a man in the water with a javelin hole in his back but he also had a knife wound in his shoulder that was older than his other injuries. Whence did he come by that?"

"That man attacked him! Haldir didn't… it wasn't unprovoked." Aragorn stammered, the unnerving chain still brushing his chest as he tried not to show how much the elf's words were getting to him.

But Fedorian was bored with talking. Talking would come later. Right now, he wanted the man to scream.

The chain arched up.

Arenath's shoulders tensed at the crack of the first blow falling. He closed his eyes and tried not to listen as metal links lashed rhythmically over pale, undefended flesh. Fedorian was just testing boundaries now, seeing how much his victim could take before he broke. Arenath had seen the end result of such treatment before in the faces of the others: that glazed, dull-eyed look they wore after it was over and they saw nothing anymore. But the ranger was holding out better than he'd hoped. Many screamed with the first blow if only just to make it stop. But it would come, if not on the first then eventually.

When the first stifled cry came, the smaller elf was on his feet and by the second, he was gone.

Aragorn was in too much pain to notice him leave. The rusted, sharpened chains wrapped around the skin of his ribs, pinched and peeled away strips. The steady, unrelenting rhythm gave him no time to collect his strength, to twist away, to breathe. It wrung helpless noises from him until he had no breath left for them. He could feel blood beginning to trickle down his chest perversely warming his icy skin. The blows seemed to come from everywhere. He choked on a sob as reeling from a breathless hit to his chest, the chain lashed over his already overworked ribs.

His arms twitched and spasmed uncontrollably as he tried and failed to shift his body away from the source of its agony. What made it worse was it was for no purpose. Fedorian didn't want anything from him other than to hurt him. He couldn't make it stop. He could only hold on and ride it out. The leaves beneath his feet spattered crimson, the trunk behind him reddening. His world funneled rapidly down towards darkness.

Then it was gone.

He jerked back from oblivion. His back and chest still screamed helplessly but the blows had stopped falling. His breath came fast and irregular as he tried to stop the wetness that wasn't rain from dripping down his cheeks. The cessation revived him only a little as pain-induced blackness still threatened to tumble him into unconsciousness.

Fedorian was breathing a little heavily, a thin film of sweat glistening on his jaw as he rounded the bleeding form's other side, tilting the limp chin up with the hand clutching the chains. His tunic and exposed skin were vermillioned with the ranger's blood.

"Haldir covers his guilt in the shadow of friendship," He let the ranger's head slump against his chest as he smeared the crimson over and around the links thoughtfully. "Blood soaks his hands as much as it does mine. I will teach you. Once you truly learn what he is, once all your petty, heroic illusions are destroyed, you can go back and tell him. He will know what he is and return to finish it."

But his victim never heard him as sweet, relieving blackness finally closed over his head.

"You're in no fit shape to go chasing off after him."

"I heal quickly."

Carlóme rolled her eyes at the predictably stubborn answer, watching as the elf threw his few belongings into his satchel. A night's sleep had done him good and he was more convinced than ever that his place was out searching for his friend.

"Go in half-drawn and he'll kill you."

"Better to be slain trying than sitting on my hands—as you seem content to do."

"Look, elf, I have to look after my own here. Brenn needs more looking after—as does Zaren still. Branock's dead. Yyrin's gone. I'm not going to lose them one by one. Here, we might get help. A few days from now maybe we can—"

"Strider might be dead by then."

"Then he died bravely and we'll avenge him."

"He risked his life to save Brenn," Haldir said in a low voice, picking up his saber. "A fine way to repay him through cowardice."

He shouldered past her out the door.

"How are you even going to find him? After that little raid of ours, he probably moved, took your ranger somewhere else." Her voice was tight but she made no move to stop him as he set foot on the stairs.

"I will find them." He had to believe that. Aragorn had never abandoned him. "I have to find him."

"We're not going with you."

"I will not wait."

"Surely you're not going alone, Haldir?" Saeryn stopped him at the bottom of the stairs. Her hair was unbound, her nightshirt still on but she stood resolutely in front of him.

"Are you coming with me?" he challenged.

Her gaze went from his face, to her leader to the floor. She did not reply.

"Then I am going alone."

He swept past her to the stable's side door.

Saeryn sank onto the bottommost step, her head in her hands. She didn't look up when Carlóme paused on the stair behind her. "He's right. We are cowards."

"We're doing what's right by us. He's doing what's right by him. When I get this thing's head, it'll be on my terms not his. That's why I'm not running off into the wilderness unprepared."

The stable's side door was unlocked and Lintedal, wide-awake, stuck her head eagerly over the stall as though she'd been expecting him. He didn't speak to her as he led her out into the early light. He didn't need to. Low dawn clouds were just beginning to brighten blue and a light wind teased golden hair off his shoulders as he leapt into the saddle.


	16. What Lies Beneath

He would be complaining about the cold if he were here. Haldir exhaled softly, his breath releasing a long stream of smoke into the air. The rain last night had made the afternoon damp and glistening. His shoulders and back ached; and his ribs hadn't forgiven him for the hours he'd been riding either, feeling as though a flaming brand had been pressed into them. But he refused to halt even for an hour's rest though it was dangerous to ride after dark like this. Lintedal kept tripping over rocks and branches hidden underfoot. Finally, when the path started to shrink and wind sharply uphill, she stopped and did not go any further.

Reticent to stop looking, the marchwarden tried to coax her forward but she refused to budge.

"Come, hiril bain. Not much farther tonight I promise."

Lintedal laid her ears back stubbornly. Flattery would get her nowhere. That path ahead was unsure even in daylight and she could hear the rough weariness in her master's voice. Surely he needed rest just like any other creature though he would not admit it even to her. But they wouldn't find what they were looking for in the dark anyway.

He wasn't going to win this battle against an animal nearly ten times his weight. However, upon dismounting, he almost wished he'd stayed in the saddle because his legs nearly gave way under him. He had to grab Lintedal's neck to keep from crumpling gracelessly in the grass. It had been a long fruitless day and he was more drained from the hopelessness of it than the length. He had already searched up the bridge and thoroughly scoured the defile searching for hints of Aragorn's presence. The most he had found was a dead log on the upper edge. A body had lain beside it for a short time but no longer.

He had to keep looking. They couldn't take him too far. Fedorian would keep him where he felt safe and secure. He would find them.

In the morning.

Cinders soared into the night air from crackling pinecones. Little enough dry wood remained in the small grove he had chosen for his camp. Lintedal rested quiet nearby, untethered or hobbled. He knew she would stay where she could keep an eye on him. Huddled in his cloak but unaware of the cold, Haldir scanned the night, his saber ever close to hand.

The long calm of winter had settled over the forest. Away in the dark, he listened to a deer stripping away bark from some ancient poplar. It reminded him of his own hunger and after digging around in his satchel, he found what he had brought from Fabor's stores though the innkeeper had been ill-pleased to part with his fresh bread and white cheese. A wineskin also lay at the bottom of his satchel though he hadn't had cause to use it yet. It contained a much more precious liquid than wine however that Haldir had brought with him as a gift for Lord Elrond from the Lord and Lady. It might come in useful. He set most of his meal aside. Estel would undoubtedly be hungry if and when he found him.

"When." Not "if." Never "if."

Haldir tilted his head back, easing his shoulders into the pine's rough embrace and ignoring the twinge in his back. Stars speckled the sky so brightly they eclipsed the tiny sliver of moon. But they brought him little comfort as a sudden, terrible vision filled his vision, imagination and memory working against him.

Aragorn's bloodied, half-naked body dropped onto dead leaves, the shine of starlight glittering in his glassy eyes.

The marchwarden ran both hands over his face and through his hair, catching his fingers in the braids. He would find him alive if he had to kill himself to do it. Shadows filled all the hollows and dells, and blotted the starlight as though to mock his determination.

Across the camp a shadow deeper than the others shifted just out of the firelight's reach. Pulled abruptly from his thoughts, Haldir looked up. His saber hissed out of its sheath.

"Show yourself. I know you're there."

Arenath approached like a wary dog seeking warmth. He looked pale and his eyes darted towards the saber in his friend's hands. "Glad I am to see you whole, my friend. I feared for you when those men—" he dropped his words when Haldir's face hardened.

He looked away from Arenath, biting the inside of his cheek. "You saw?"

"I tried to help you. I swear I would never have—" The slighter elf, watching the saber lower, grew a little more confident and stepped fully into the flamelight, his hair glinting as he cast back his grey cloak. "I would never have left you, Haldir."

"I do not blame you."

"No. I knew you wouldn't. Are your wounds—?"

"Where is Estel?"

Arenath looked as though Haldir had slapped him. His lips moved but no sound came out. A log erupted in showering sparks and he flinched back, gathering the edges of his cloak in his fists. "That…that is his name? The dark-haired—? The one I met on the bridge."

"Yes." Haldir did not take his eyes off the smaller elf.

Arenath let out a shuddering sigh and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze was almost reproachful. "You couldn't leave it alone, could you, Haldir? You just couldn't. You had to get involved."

"I was involved the second I let you two leave Lothlórien," Haldir's jaw had gone rigid. "I am responsible. Now, where have you taken him?"

But Arenath was staring at Haldir, his eyes narrowed not in malice but in curiosity. "How is it that he has earned your loyalty? When last I knew you, you carried the game as far as Fedorian. There wasn't any blood you wouldn't spill. Even a man's. That's what you—we—did." Recollection flittered over his face. "That boy… the one who was there when we rescued you from the Gondorians before, the one you said was an elf-friend…"

"Don't, Arenath. He has nothing to do with this."

"What was his name?"

Haldir sighed. He didn't need to think to remember. "Tergon."

"Even he," Arenath stepped around the fire so he was directly facing his former comrade in arms. "Even he was not spared. He had earned your loyalty, your friendship and what did you do to him?"

Haldir closed his eyes. His onetime friend was rubbing his face in things he had worked long and hard to forget. And failed.

Arenath answered for him. "You killed him. Same as the others."

"It has been a long time since you knew me. I have changed."

"Have you? I wonder. Fedorian told me he found a man, one of those that attacked you yesterday. He had been stabbed before. With a knife. In the shoulder." Arenath was not being cruel on purpose but he had spent too many years in Fedorian's blunt company. "You still carry that scar on your shoulder don't you? From Tergon's knife."

"And how many scars do you carry, Arenath? How many bodies have you left behind you since leaving Lothlórien?" Driven to retaliation, Haldir thrust the darkness of their shared pasts right back in his compatriot's face, knowing it would sting. "How many have you heard expel their last bloody breaths off the battlefield?"

Arenath blanched but his face had lost none of its rigidity. "I have done my duty by my commanding officer."

"Who has lost all that remained of his senses!"

The other elf's head cocked calculatingly. "Tergon looks like your Estel. Is that what you're trying to do? Make amends?" When Haldir said nothing, he took a pace forward, new understanding filling his deceptively youthful face. "You didn't tell him, did you? He doesn't know anything about any of this."

"There was nothing to tell."

"No? He will find out. Fedorian will tell him. Once he knows, Haldir, what do you think he will do? He will not even want to be anywhere near you. He will never call you 'friend' again." Honest puzzlement was written in the smaller elf's wide, uncomprehending eyes. "What makes you think otherwise?"

It was the question Haldir had agonized over ever since befriending the human ranger. He couldn't forgive himself for what had happened to Tergon. How could he expect Aragorn to understand let alone forgive him when he couldn't even forgive himself? But he couldn't answer these questions. What mattered first and foremost was getting Aragorn back alive. He could figure out those answers after that.

"I care enough for his well-being to try to save him even if it means he will never look on me again. What have you done with him?"

"Are you asking me to betray him?" Haldir knew who he meant and it wasn't Estel. It was almost a warning. Arenath had moved back again.

"I am asking you to save the life of one you know is guiltless of any crime save his blood."

Arenath continued backing away, shaking his head, his legs tensing as though to flee. His face had lost its color again. Haldir had asked of him the one thing he had sworn he would never do. He knew what terrible things he had done since leaving his homeland; he knew what Fedorian intended to do with the boy now in his grasp. But even now certain bonds were hard chains to break and Fedorian's hold over him had always been particularly strong.

Haldir grabbed his arm to forestall any flight and wrenched him back around. "Then why come to me if you will not help me?"

The elf fought him briefly before realizing he could not break the desperate, steel clasp. He stopped struggling but kept his face directed at the earthen floor, unwilling to raise his eyes. "Because I am…I am tired. I am so tired, Haldir."

"Then help me. For once, do something you can be proud of."

"I can't—"

Haldir overrode him, his voice carrying more than a little authority in it. Arenath was a soldier. He would listen to orders if to nothing else. "Tell me where you have taken him, Arenath."

Arenath told him. Haldir loosened his grip and the smaller elf darted free like a sparrow escaping the falcon's claws.

"Will he live?" Haldir called after him.

Arenath paused at the very brink of the light, his back still facing his former friend.

"Is he strong?"

In fact, Aragorn had come painfully to his senses less than a quarter of an hour ago. His back pulsed angrily, still feeling the searing strokes of the chain. Every time he shifted, trying futilely to get comfortable, the bark scraped up against the pinched and torn skin. At least no bones were broken. That he could feel anyway. If the chains had snapped his ribs, which they easily could have done, he'd likely be choking in his own blood right now. At it stood, his feet almost dangled above the ground forcing him to exert even more pressure on his protesting shoulders.

His dark hair fell across his eyes as he let his head loll against his chest. The naked skin, that bare of dark bruises anyway, was a strange mottled blue color. He didn't think that was a good thing but he was too tired and cold to remember why.

If he kept focusing all his energy on the grass blades between his boots, it made the pain easier. Trying to take his mind off his miserable discomfort, he consoled himself with the thought that at least Brenn was free; Carlóme had gotten him away. They'd all gotten away.

Did they even know he was gone? Would they search for him as they had Brenn? For a fleeting moment, despair tugged at him, whispering deathly in his ear that he would never be found—not in a way that mattered anyway. Like a glass of cold water, it filled his chest and he let the agony on his back scream for a bit. Pain was better than despair. It meant he was still alive and the others, if they were coming for him, had more time. He wouldn't be the first to give in. Lifting his eyes, he saw Arenath enter camp.

He didn't know where the elf had gone though he felt a little safer knowing the other was near. He didn't care to know where Fedorian was though he sensed the murderous one was still nearby. The manacles' bloody ends bumped against his chest when he moved again. They had been draped around his neck.

The look Arenath cast his way might have been guilty but Aragorn wasn't sure for the elf quickly set about ignoring him and clearing a place in the grass for a fire. The flames sputtered in the damp then a pinecone caught and quickened. With a few more additions, it began to burn steadily. The tendrils of warmth did not stretch around the bole of the tree; and Aragorn urgently tried to suppress his violent shuddering. He didn't want to draw any undue attention if he could help it. But the clinking of his chains was easily audible to elven ears. Arenath glanced up from the flames then started to rise with a sigh.

"Do not touch him."

The younger elf jerked back reflexively as Fedorian prowled over the small fire from wherever he had been sitting in the darkness.

After Arenath had sat back down Fedorian stood statue-still for a long time. He stared into the fire and Aragorn stared at his back, almost holding his breath. The tall elf was so still for so long that when he actually did move Aragorn started. But the elf didn't come towards him just yet. Instead, he dropped into a low crouch and flipped over his cloak which lay close to the tree, revealing Aragorn's broadsword and pack, the only items he'd had on him at his capture.

He examined the weapon critically in the faint light. "A soldier is defined by the state of his weapon. What does this say of you I wonder?" He tapped the shorn tip against the ranger's chest. When Aragorn answered nothing, he tossed the blade aside and picked up a simple, well-rubbed pouch which the man had worn on a leather string around his neck, close to his skin.

The bright glow of a serviceberry flower drifted into his palm when he upended it. Aragorn closed his eyes. A spark appeared in his mind. She had worn such a playful smile that day when she'd plucked the first summer flower from Elrond's gardens and placed it in his hair. He chased after her and shook the full cherry boughs until her silvery laughter rang. The petals whirling like snowflakes, caught in her dark twilight tresses.

Fedorian threw the flower in the fire. He met the human's glare with calm. "You cannot actually kill me with your stare, adan. No matter how you might wish to."

Aragorn held his breath when the elf extracted a small object wrapped delicately in a worn cloth. It was the only other dear thing in the pouch.

"What is this?" Fedorian unwound the oilcloth and tilted it slightly so the small thing rolled into his palm.

Twin pairs of verdant eyes winked in the faint light; one serpent entwined around a silver band devoured the other which upheld a crown of flowers. The Galadhel studied it for a very long time, turning the ring over and over between his fingers. The snakes' eyes seemed to absorb rather than reflect light and shone summer-green even when he held it away from the flames.

Aragorn's mind raced. He knew Haldir had fought in the Last Alliance. It stood to reason Fedorian had too. It stood to reason he would also recognize the Ring of Barahir that Elendil had worn to war and bequeathed to his eldest before his death, that heirloom of Kings given long ago in the First Age as a sign of friendship between men and elves. The irony was not lost on the human.

"How were you blinded?"

The pouch crumpled as Fedorian's long fingers closed around it.

Having satisfactorily distracted the elf, Aragorn met the blazing eyes unflinching when the elf stalked up to within a foot of him. He would not forget the sight of the petals blackening. He had forgotten his hunger, his thirst and the pain in his back. With his eyes he pointedly traced the white scar that could barely be seen above the elf's fair brow.

"Were you struck with a blade? Was that it?"

Arenath's head snapped up, his mouth slightly agape at the gall of the human.

Fedorian stared at him as though scarce able to believe his captive's insolence. Slowly his hands relaxed and he dropped Barahir. The calm smile returned to his face though it was a little more strained than before. His eyes were still hard and revealing as glass.

"How is it that Haldir could put up with such intrusive questioning?"

"He tells me I'm nosy," Aragorn's tone was light and bantering but his eyes remained hard, grey pools. Only the faint tremor in his arms betrayed the bone-deep cold and fear that was gnawing at him.

Aragorn automatically flinched when the elf raised his hand. Icy fingers ran lightly over the raised bump on the back of his head.

"A blade fractured my skull. Not unlike the blow I gave you though you fared better…"

Fedorian pressed inward until the wound throbbed again and soft purple spots slid over Aragorn's vision. "You will find, boy, that I am not as patient as Haldir is."

"He would never do what you have done!" Aragorn hissed, blinking his vision clear and trying to ignore his heaving stomach.

"No. He is worse. I do not hide what I am. I do not conceal the truth from those I consider allies," the dead eyes flitted briefly over to Arenath. "I do not turn on my friends."

"He didn't turn on me."

"Not yet. But you are not his first human friend, are you?"

"Sir—" Arenath stood up but faltered when Fedorian looked over at him.

"He has the right to know how grievously he has been deceived, Arenath. He should know why he is in this mess. Why he is suffering."

Aragorn shut his eyes tight and repressed a shudder as the cold fingertips trailed over his battered, blood-encrusted ribs.

"For you are suffering, adan. And you will suffer more. Perhaps if Haldir had been a little more truthful, he might have warned you. He might have spared you this. But, no, as always, his pride and self-righteousness forces others to pay the price he exacts."

Aragorn said nothing. He refused to rise to such baiting.

"Naturally, he hides his shame in a fair cloak of honor, of duty," Fedorian sneered the words. "But he had neither when he slew the Gondorians in their sleep. When he willingly stabbed an innocent boy—"

With a clatter, Arenath knocked over the cooking pan he'd been placing the rabbit meat in. Fedorian spun sharply and hauled him out of the way by his collar, scattering the curls of smoke smoldering from the pine needles.

"Arenath, be careful."

Aragorn couldn't see Fedorian's face. But the younger elf quickly scrambled down on hands and knees to correct his mistake.

"I'm sorry, it was an accident." Even with his head bent over, Aragorn could have sworn Arenath's eyes darted for the sparest second in his direction. "It was an accident."

Night temperatures plunged dangerously and Aragorn's clothes were nowhere near dry. A glazed coat of ice crusted the edges of his trousers and boots. It had started with a creeping burning and numbing, first his fingers, then his wrists, forearms, shoulders and sweeping down his back, wracking him with chills. He was shuddering so violently he had to close his eyes to keep from being nauseous.

He had tried to think of other things. He remembered the roaring hearth in the Hall of Rivendell on feastdays or really any days. It always burned tall and bright. But though he walked towards them, the flames receded, or he was stepping back from them. The points of flames grew smaller and he was outside, in the dark, the door shut on him.

Arenath set aside his plate, his eyes on the unmoving form. "He isn't going to last the night if we keep him tied like that. It's too cold."

Fedorian looked at him and the younger elf seemed to wilt slightly but the older elf switched his gaze to the human whose skin had dipped into a fascinating shade of white. He considered.

"You lost that big hunter last winter remember," Arenath pressed.

"Then take him down if you wish. I want him to last longer than the night."

Arenath, already hurrying over to the man, flinched at those words. Luckily Fedorian didn't see him with his back turned.

Aragorn's bleary eyes watched the elf with confusion when Arenath took the chains from around his neck and dumped them on the ground.

"Perhaps it would be a kinder mercy to let you die tonight," the elf murmured, touching the man's bonds above his lifeless wrists. The human was already so cold. Usually when they were this cold, they were dying already. It wasn't really the torture that was draining though in the end, usually, it did kill. But the cold in the winter or the heat in summer sapped humans' strength so easily. Arenath always wondered how this race had survived; they seemed so fragile.

The human was pale but beyond the usual color. He had seen others pale with fear, with surprise, with blood loss. This was the paleness that approached after blood had fled from the face entirely and had no hope of returning. He looked that shade of death, lips, cheeks, fingers and eyes all blue and glowing. Taking his lip between his teeth, Arenath cast a glance over his shoulder, making sure Fedorian was out of earshot before speaking.

"I have seen this kind of death before. It is quiet. You will sleep. You will not suffer anymore."

Aragorn heard the words but they didn't really register. He could only feel cold and the swirling blue shadows under his feet. Blurrily, he forced his faltering consciousness to work out what the elf was asking him.

"I can help you." Arenath bent and picked up the knife he had used earlier to tear the human's tunic and pressed it gently against the man's ribs. A good, sharp thrust in the right place and it would all be silence. Haldir would not have wanted the human to suffer like this.

The prick of steel didn't register. His abdomen had gone numb. But something in Arenath's eyes must have alerted him to the situation because he tried to shake his head. No, he'd promised himself he'd wait. He had to give Haldir more time… the others…they were coming for him…He knew it! He had to hold on that long. No matter how much he wanted to sleep.

"Arenath, what's taking you so long?"

The elf jerked in surprise and the knife scored a short scratch across the man's side.

The sudden shock of a different pain cleared the fog from Aragorn's head and he blinked rapidly. "No…" he croaked. "Have to…hold on…promised…"

Arenath closed his eyes but let the knife drop and began working the knots that kept him threaded to the tree. He caught the ranger in his arms when he slumped limply, unable to hold his own weight up. However, he was careful to tie the man's wrists again in front of him though he knew the human was too weak to run.

Aragorn's stiff and cramped legs refused to work properly so Arenath had to half-support, half-drag him over to the fire, dropping his faltering, frozen body beside it. Automatically, the human curled as close to the life-giving warmth as he could, singeing his sleeves as blood began to throb painfully back into places it had long been restricted.

The shadow of Fedorian blocked the warmth as he stood over the human, his face hardened with dissatisfaction. "You tasted only a fragment of the pain I intend for you, human. This is but a short reprieve. Mortal bodies are so ill-equipped for dealing with prolonged punishment. But you will last long enough for what I need."

His gaze lifted to the other elf who kept his head lowered, pretending to rummage among their things. "Watch him carefully, Arenath."

"Where are you going?" the younger elf dared raise his head, for the first time noticing Fedorian had several odd-shaped materials and coils of rope draped over one shoulder, his russet cloak in his other hand.

The dark Galadhel smiled enigmatically. "I will tell you later. For now, keep camp. Make sure our hard-won prize does not die of cold before I can deal with him properly." He patted Aragorn's hurting shoulders purposely as he passed.

Arenath waited until he had gone then slowly crouched beside the human who lay tucked up within himself, shuddering anew now that blood circulation had come back a little. The pain in his back wasn't so bad now that he had his throbbing fingers, face and toes to concentrate on. He didn't look up when Arenath leaned over him.

"You are blue."

"Helchon."

Arenath brushed a bit of ice from the hem of the ranger's tunic. "Well, if you stay in those wet things, you're going to get colder." He waited and when the ranger did nothing but stare at him, he reached out and slipped the ripped, creek-and blood-dampened fabric from around the man's shoulders, ignoring his protests. "It is no good to you now."

The man's skin was as cold as an iced brook and nearly as pale. He seemed incapable of doing more than lying there so Arenath, his lower lip between his front teeth again, crossed the man's arms over his chest to keep in what warmth he had and tucked several thick wraps under and over him to keep him off the partially frozen ground.

As sweet, melting warmth seeped back into his deadened limbs, Aragorn began to stir like a beast coming out of hibernation. He blinked and met his caregiver's gaze which hurriedly glanced away.

"Hannon le."

Arenath shrugged, still keeping his eyes on the fire.

The elf clearly didn't want to talk to him; and Aragorn felt too tired to try. As his mind thawed, memories of the last few hours bubbled to the surface. Fedorian's words kept playing over and over in his head: He slew the Gondorians in their sleep…willingly stabbed an innocent boy…

No matter what the dark Galadhel said he couldn't believe his friend capable of such things. He was a soldier, yes. Sometimes duty was a difficult line to walk. Sometimes it involved a certain ruthlessness of character. Meeting him for the first time, Aragorn had been off-put by Haldir's rough-and-ready manner, his caustic humor, his secrets. But after traveling with him for more than two months, after what they endured together in the early weeks of their friendship, Aragorn couldn't find it in him to think of Haldir other than as a noble elf, an honorable soldier…

A good friend.

Though Haldir only reciprocated the sentiment in small ways, never giving too much, or sharing too much of his own private concerns. Aragorn hadn't minded; he was willing to work towards friendship and not push too hard. Haldir had said some things in his life were not worth knowing. "Not everything I have done in my life is worthy of praise."

But his friend had been hiding behind his walls for far too long. His silence had been eating him up inside before they had even come to Merdon and Aragorn could see it. Despite his position, he was interested in breaking open this controversy of secrecy. Maybe at last, he would be able to help his friend.

He sighed and closed his eyes against the suddenly bright fire-glare. He wouldn't be able to help Haldir if he were dead. A short, shaky breath escaped his lips.

Arenath looked over at him. The elf had walked away from the fire, standing guard with his face outwards towards the trees. But he turned back now.

"I cannot help you." Flatly.

"Iston. (I know.)" Aragorn stammered, his teeth chattering again.

"Stop that! You are no elf!" Arenath suddenly burst out, his fists clenching. An agony of conflict shone in his youthful face.

Aragorn sat up slowly, pulling the blankets close around his shoulders. "Why do you stay with him if you…are so unhappy?"

Arenath's face twisted in a grimace. Tearing his eyes from the human's face, he wrapped the remains of the evening meal in a cloth and stored it in his pack.

Aragorn hadn't expected an answer and instead plucked at a small hole in one of the blankets. He looked up sharply when he heard the soft, barely audible whisper.

"I swore."

"No oath is worth this." Aragorn gestured vaguely with a wool-covered hand at the small camp, the dead branches and bloody chains.

"He is my friend and my commander. I cannot abandon him," it sounded like an oft-repeated litany, so worn and threadbare by steady repetition that all meaning had gone from it.

Aragorn didn't believe him. But he was at least a little relieved now that he had someone to talk to. Someone who didn't necessarily hate him.

"Can I ask you something?"

"No." Arenath would much rather have pretended the human didn't exist. But he looked back at him anyway. "What is it?"

"What—he—said…about Haldir…is it true?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you."

Arenath shrugged. "Believe what you like. But if you did not know better, would you think me a killer?"

"I don't think you are a killer. Not by choice."

"People always hide who they really are. Even Haldir. Even you, Heir of Elendil."

Aragorn had no response to that. His insides squirmed uncomfortably as he realized these elves knew more of him than he wanted them to know. Though it probably didn't matter to Fedorian if he were the lowest peasant or the next King of Gondor, he was human and that meant he had to die.

"What did he tell you?" Arenath looked as though he'd asked this against his better judgement.

Aragorn told him what little he knew about Fedorian's torment and the conflagration that had struck Lothlórien in the wake of the Gondorian's attack.

Arenath passed a hand through his pale hair, gazing into the middle distance. The campfire glittered in his eyes. "Mandos claimed forty-odd soldiers that night alone, and more after from wounds and burns. Two of them…" He paused and stayed quiet a moment, a slight frown creasing his forehead as though he were recalling things he had not thought about in years and found bitter to bring up again.

"Two of them were our healers: Geilrín and Silivren. They saved the lives of many that night and before that night."

Aragorn looked down at his hands folded inside the blankets. The deaths of healers were always horribly sad and often violent because of the lives they freely gave in service to others; he knew that well enough from his father's experiences. But he didn't understand the heart-deep pain that flickered in the elf's cerulean eyes.

"Why—?" Aragorn found himself asking something and then not knowing how to ask it.

But Arenath, locked in the rush of his swirling memories, did not hear the half-spoken question. "They were killed in the fire. Or at least one of them was. Geilrín suffocated from breathing in the smoke. Silivren…Silivren's body was never recovered."

For the first time in minutes, the elf lifted his eyes and Aragorn felt himself pierced by the startling grief in their depths. "You wonder perhaps, why this would matter at all to us? Out here, in the wilderness, cut off from home… from family?"

Sudden realization made Aragorn's chest wring with something he thought he would never have felt for his tormentors: pity. "They were your family."

"No… Not mine."

The elf abruptly rose and walked away from the flames. Aragorn thought he was leaving until he returned with his cloak and extracted something from a pocket sewn on the inside. He passed a flat, square paper over to Aragorn. The man took it in his bound hands and unfolded it gingerly. It was a sketch drawn on ancient parchment, spattered, creased, smoke-singed and stained after who knew how many years.

Two nearly identical women sat in the foreground, one sitting against the other's knees. The younger woman had her arm wrapped playfully around the elder's neck. They were both laughing. The artist had captured them beautifully: the upraised chins, the small wisps of hair that had escaped their ties and fallen into their sparking eyes. Arenath pointed to the elder woman first, his voice sounding muffled.

"Geilrín was Fedorian's wife, Silivren his daughter."

"They're beautiful." Aragorn could think of nothing else to say but even those words were hollow and Arenath ignored them.

"They were beloved of the northern marches. Their deaths were a—a crippling blow. I was his second then. I bore much of the brunt, the fault, the… command when it fell apart. We didn't fight the men anymore… openly anyway. We hunted them down instead. We searched them out every night. Just the three of us."

"Three," Aragorn echoed the word and the answer flickered like a will o' wisp. "Haldir."

"We raided their camps nightly, taking from them the lives they'd ripped from us. It wasn't honorable," Arenath stared into the picture. "War never is. Doubtless, because of your heritage, you know of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men?"

"I do," Aragorn said hesitantly, wondering where this was going and pulling the blankets tighter around his chest.

"It claimed many more lives than the fire. Many, many more. One of these was Haldir's father," Arenath leveled an even gaze at the man. "Did you know that too?"

"No. I didn't." Aragorn had known Haldir had brothers, of course—had met them while he was staying in Lothlórien. But parents, aside from a brief discussion about Aragorn's own unique situation, had never come up. He had never even thought to ask since Haldir and his brothers were now fully grown and warriors in their own right.

"Soldiers of the Daglorlad," Arenath continued. "regardless of where they went after the Dark Lord's defeat, stayed on that battlefield for the rest of their lives, haunted by it in dreams and waking life. For many, it was the first time they'd ever seen true, bloody warfare. Often, it was the last. After what was left of King Amdir's company returned without their dead, Haldir…he couldn't take care of his family… not well. His brothers were still too young to understand.

"Geilrín and Silivren gave them what aid they could. They became his family too. He had already lost a father—was losing a mother. With his brothers still so young…Without Geilrín and Silivren I don't think they could have held together. And after they died, everything collapsed. We needed to avenge them, to bring home our dead.

"But it was too easy," the elf touched the knife at his waist and hastily wiped his fingers on his trouser leg as though he had gotten something on them. "And we got carried away. Have you ever had a man on his knees before you? Pleading for his life? Have you ever looked at him, and not cared? Some nights it was easy just to…to…But others I could barely lift my sword for seeing those eyes. It made you empty inside," A brief shudder passed through him and he briefly closed his haunted eyes. "Haldir knew it. He got out of it while he could."

"Why didn't you?" Aragorn asked the question numbly, his mind still reeling from trying to absorb all this information. At last, he understood why Haldir had nightmares of burning, how he shied not only from human touch because of what had happened to him—but because of what he had done to them.

"I was already drenched in blood and bound by it. His—Fedorian's—daughter was almost…my wife. Silivren."

Sadly Aragorn handed the picture back. "I am sorry for your loss," he offered.

Arenath said nothing but took the drawing from him and tucked it back in its hiding place. He didn't know what had made him talk about all this. He hadn't even mentioned their names to Fedorian in years. Some nights, he wasn't sure his friend remembered them at all and simply continued the bloodlust for the sake of old habit. To find himself confiding this very near grief to a human who he would kill in the next few days was nothing short of ridiculous—if remarkable.

Aragorn too was astonished by the other's candor though his tale was heartbreaking. At least he had a better understanding of his enemy now though it had muddied the waters quite a bit more than he'd ever wanted it to. It couldn't be "us against them" anymore. Nothing was simply one side or the other. You couldn't just be evil. Something made you that way.

"I do not think she would want to see you like this, so unhappy," he said so quietly he barely heard his own words.

"No, she would not," Arenath had heard him clearly. With his back to the ranger, he ran a hand over his face, glancing curiously at his wet fingertips when he pulled them away. "But he is the only family I have left. She would want me to take care of him."

His cheeks glistened in the firelight. "Do you see now? He has no choice and neither do I. And, as usual, I have said too much." He leapt up abruptly and said over his shoulder, "It would be best for you to sleep while you can."

Aragorn lay down obediently but his mind buzzed for a long time afterward until sleep stole unexpectedly up on him; and he sank into uneasy dreams of burning branches and two white-dressed figures who ran among the flames.


	17. Broken

The toe of a boot slamming into his side was the first sensation Aragorn felt upon waking. He groaned, trying to rid his head of the strangely vivid dreams even as the lancing pain in his ribs woke him fully.

"Rise and shine, egol," Fedorian said, sounding unusually cheerful as he gave the ranger another painful nudge to make sure he was awake.

It was daylight though only just. Smoky blue light edged the bare branches and their dismal camp. Sometime during the night someone had replaced his dry though still tatty tunic over his shoulders and hobbled his ankles. Aragorn started to sit up, the blankets slipped off his shoulders and the spike of cold air made him catch his breath. Arenath cast him a harried glance as he threw his cloak and belongings haphazardly into his pack.

Fedorian's heel ground painfully into the fiery, unhealed lashes on Aragorn's back, forcing him back onto his stomach. Paralyzed by the sudden arch of pain, Aragorn pressed himself into the grass, stilling instantly. Fedorian grabbed him roughly by the hair and hauled him to his feet, slicing the hobbles from his ankles. Still disoriented from his abrupt awakening, he had no idea what was going on or why the two seemed in such a hurry. His legs felt watery and uncertain beneath him and his head spun.

Shivering in the glassy air, he waited nervously as Arenath threaded a thinner rope through his wrist restraints, tying it off tightly and holding the other end in his hand until Fedorian, leading a horse into the glade retrieved it from him.

Aragorn had never seen the animal until now but supposed Fedorian must have kept it for long-distance hunts or ranges into the town that was some hours' distance. With his hands bound in front of him, the other end looped around Fedorian's saddle horn, his muscles ached with protest. His injuries were not happy with the continued strain and blood rewetted his tunic as he staggered in the wake of the horse.

The other elf also followed on foot though he was fleeter than the exhausted human and could keep up with the horse's steady pace. The sun climbed steadily into the sky and soon, despite the chill in the air, Aragorn could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck. He could hear nothing but the faint whispers of the elves in front of him as they conversed quietly together. He forced his legs a little faster so he could listen in.

Arenath looked up at his friend. "You are sure then?" he sounded a little doubtful to whatever Fedorian had told him.

"You doubt my judgement?" the elder elf glanced back and noticed the human watching but did not trouble to lower his voice. "I have simply laid it as a precaution. Then we will be certain we are not followed. We can retrieve it later if you miss the weight of it in your pack."

They came to the ridge where they were forced to slow the horse in order to negotiate the narrow ledge. Aragorn kept his eyes riveted on his footing rather than the gaping ravine on the right.

Arenath too was walking on the inner curve, close to the wall. He had dropped back several paces behind the human to guard the rear because the ledge was too narrow for two to walk abreast much less with a horse. Aragorn twisted around to look at him.

"Face front," Arenath whispered, his eyes raking the uneven ledges overhead. "The footing is unsteady here."

"Why are you so kind to me?" Aragorn asked, obediently turning back around.

"I am not kind."

"You did not kill me when I tried to escape. You didn't let me die," Aragorn said, daring another glance back.

"I wanted to."

"No, you didn't."

"What did I tell you? Face front!" Arenath snapped. "If you go over the edge, I will not save you, human."

Aragorn did as bid again. His sword had been bound to Fedorian's saddle. He watched the hilt rock up and down with the movement of the horse's gait and longed for it in his hands. If only he could get them free…He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Arenath. However, the other elf, after all of his confidences the night before, made a point of looking away from the human in his partner's presence.

But being ignored had never deterred Aragorn before and it did not now.

"I live in a place called Rivendell," he said, still facing forward. "full of waterfalls and gardens that turn all kinds of colors in the summer. Roaring fires would be lit in all the hearths this time of the year. Wanderers find rest and peace there. It's very beautiful. I think you would like it."

The lead rope gave a sudden, harsh jerk on his wrists and Aragorn stumbled, trying in vain to stop his forward momentum towards the edge. Dislodged scree skittered over the precipice and bounced down to a collection of sharp rocks hundreds of feet beneath him. He had a terrifying glimpse of the silver ribbon that was the river Isen and the swaying heads of trees before another heave on the line slammed him back against the cliff face, his face sheened with sweat and chest heaving.

Arenath gripped his shoulders and propelled him a couple yards so he wouldn't be dragged until he got his feet under him again.

"You must be silent," he whispered, glancing up at the boulder-tumbled bluff. "This is orc territory. We have no desire to be spotted."

Aragorn swallowed hard, still trying to calm his trembling heart. His situation was already bad enough; he didn't need orcs to worsen it. He stopped talking and forced his protesting muscles to keep moving. His boots pounded the dusty ground and grit drifted into his eyes from above. But he made sure he kept up, glaring at Fedorian's straight back.

They reached a passage where the road widened in a large curve, the path overthrown with shadows from an overhang above. Splintered rocks were scattered over the ledge like children's discarded toys and made it more difficult to navigate and they had to slow down considerably to weave a way through. Aragorn was watching his footing so closely he didn't realize Fedorian had checked the horse until he nearly ran into its back end.

Blinking as his eyes adjusted to the cool shadows, he wondered why they had stopped until he saw the rangy figures rising from concealment among the boulders. Black lips drew back in fanged smiles as they closed in, in front and behind, blocking escape. Yellow eyes burned as a hard creaking announced the stretching of warg-hair bowstrings.

Ambush.

The ashes of a fire were freshly strewn. Some of the embers were still glowing where they'd caught on a patch of pine needles. But the glade itself was empty. Haldir straightened with a frustrated sigh, wiping his soot-blackened hand on his leggings. He hadn't missed them by much.

The path up the ridge had delayed him far too long. A snare had nearly crippled Lintedal before he had spotted it. It had taken him another, precious hour to disentangle it and scout the road clear ahead. He rued every minute's delay and finally left her at the foot of the incline to climb up to the camp Arenath had revealed to him last night.

Haldir searched the area thoroughly and found strange markings, dark spatters all down a trunk and roots at the camp's far end. The elf captain touched the bloodstains with growing horror. Estel. He turned swiftly back to where he'd left Lintedal, hurriedly but cautiously picking his way through the undergrowth. He wouldn't have put it past Fedorian to leave behind some kind of trap.

The first shaft buzzed past his head like a hornet and thudded into the trunk behind him. Instinctively he threw himself to the earth. Ducking out of the way of further arrows, he pressed his back against a tree's protective bole. Haldir held his breath, listening. Nothing more came as though his attacker had lost sight of him. Something crackled in the woods a few yards away.

Catching one of the boughs overhead, he darted silently from bough to bough high above the forest floor until he found it. A dark shape lay crouched next to the earth, its hood drawn up over its face as it stretched its neck up a little, obviously searching for him.

He swung down hard and fast. His boots caught his attacker squarely in the midsection and flung him over onto his back. The figure lost its grip on its bow as it scrambled up and the hood slid off its face, revealing pale features and a mane of brown hair.

Saeryn.

Haldir pulled back in surprise, letting his half-pulled saber drop back into its sheath. "What are you doing out here?"

Stunned into immobility, she stared at him in shock then realization of what she'd almost done filled her and she covered her face, mortified. "I thought you were he! I'm sorry!"

"You missed him by about a half hour. They've gone already and Estel with them," Haldir set her near-slaying of him aside with the ease of one who'd had too much experience with it. "Are the others with you?"

"Dammit, elf, someone needs to put a bell on you," Carlóme's familiar voice growled as the dark woman stepped out of the undergrowth. Other shapes rose up like wraiths behind her. Narturi waved at him.

Carlóme raised an eyebrow at him, the javelin settled against her shoulder. "So, are you going to stand there gaping at us all day or are you going to tell us where your ranger is?"

"He's not my ranger," Haldir said absentmindedly as he walked them back towards the abandoned campsite. "There are horse's hooves in the wet earth here and here. The boot heels behind them are Estel's, I'm sure of it."

"Where are they going?" Miren ventured, staring at the far end of the camp where the trail exited.

Haldir was already crossing the clearing, stepping around ash and the brittle remains of firewood. They had left in a hurry. Some of the pine needles were still smouldering from embers improperly extinguished. Usually elves were never so irresponsible and took exquisite care to conceal their presence from others. Either Fedorian was in too much of a hurry to bother or he wanted to be found. "I think they've taken back to the road."

"He doesn't know we're looking for him though does he?" Saeryn asked, gripping her bow tightly as she caught up with him.

"Do you think I know how he thinks?" Haldir whirled on her. "Do you think simply because I happen to be an elf I have any idea where he might have taken him or what they are going to do? Do you?"

She stepped back, shocked by his sudden outburst.

"We didn't need to come with you, elf," Carlóme reminded him. "Don't jump down her throat because you don't have any answers."

He reined in his anger sharply and drew back from her with a slightly ashamed shake of his head. He hadn't meant to lose his temper like that but a sleepless night compounded with worry for Estel gnawing at his belly made him a little less than amiable when they insisted on asking him things he could not—or dared not—answer.

"If Fedorian feels threatened, he'll try for a place he feels safe. The fastest way to go there would be the road," he said at last staring at the old oak that still bore cracked and drying bloodstains.

"We will find him," Saeryn reassured him.

Wordlessly, he retrieved Lintedal. The mare seemed uneasy and kept sidestepping, the long grass swishing around her forelegs. Horses' senses were keener than humans and elves. A ripple of warning shivered up Haldir's spine as Carlóme skirted a fallen log in front of him.

A small snick was their only warning. The taut, black thread concealed in the long grass abruptly slackened and the crosshair trigger released the wide net that enveloped Carlóme and her horse entirely and tangled Saeryn and Kari who were on foot as well. Tiny, three-pronged hooks had been skillfully woven into the mesh like metal spiders and snagged in clothes, hair and skin as they fought to free themselves. The others moved to help but the cruel hooks made things even more impossible.

"Stand aside!" Haldir barked at them. "Stop moving." He was familiar with these kinds of snares and the others trying to disentangle it would only tangle it more. Carlóme's horse too, its pelt scored by the sharpened metal, was beginning to panic.

He edged past it and caught the heavy drop-rope in his hands.

The horse nervously sidestepped him and a hook caught it sharply across the eye. The beast reared. Startled, Haldir tried to leap aside as the horse's heavy flank slammed him sidelong into the fallen log. Pinned like a piece of metal on an anvil, he gasped, half-crushed. The weight fell off him almost immediately as Carlóme jerked the reins hard left. He staggered sideways, hugging his side as he sliced the thick rope that had dropped the net.

The others grabbed corners and peeled it away cautiously, pulling it away from gear and the horse's hooves. Thankfully, none of the hooks had caused great damage though the horse's eye was rather badly cut and would need tending to when they returned to Merdon.

Haldir stayed leaning against the log a few seconds too long and Saeryn asked with concern, "What happened?"

He straightened determinedly. "Watch your footing."

Thankfully they reached the road without further mishap. Eyeing Lintedal's broad back, he pulled himself into the saddle, unable to ignore the sharp lance in his side when he swung his leg over. The log had finally done what Branock could not and broken the strained rib; he could almost feel it grinding against the others. The movement of the horse did not help any but thoughts of what Estel might be enduring forced away his own pain.

They were approaching a bend in the road when Haldir suddenly held up a hand, halting the column. "Do you hear that?"

"I don't have elf ears," Carlóme grumbled next to him but she too was leaning forward, listening. "Sounds like a battle."

Haldir swung down, careful to keep his weight light as he touched the ground. "Orcs. Many of them." He thought for a split second. "Those of you with bows, come with me. The others stay here with the horses. We'll bring word."

Saeryn, Kari, and Carlóme, who though without a bow was unwilling to be left behind, followed him as he climbed up the crags with a little less than his usual grace.

"Why don't we just charge them?" Carlóme growled as she used her javelin like a walking stick to lever herself to a sturdier position as they crouched down among the dun-colored rocks, surveying the bloody melee below.

"Whole hunting parties have been slain that way, not knowing the enemy number or position. We watch first. If this is just some orc dispute between tribes, we leave them to it," Haldir said, shading his eyes against the sunlight as he tried to pick out the identity of the fighters below. "Besides, that ledge is narrow enough without us..."

He trailed off abruptly and narrowed his eyes against the sun glare. Beneath a shadowy overhang, he had caught a glimpse of a dark-haired head in the midst of the orc-black. It was Aragorn. Unknowingly, they'd stumbled right upon the human and his captors. The ranger was bound and helpless against orc blades, but he was standing and alive. The elf captain had leapt up before he even realized it. All thoughts of pain or weariness wiped away instantly.

But even as he stood up, even as he drew his saber, he saw Fedorian rise in his stirrups, a knife ready in his hand, poised and aimed. Aragorn was a half pace away. He couldn't miss.

Fedorian surveyed the orcs with something akin to distaste as though they were an inconvenience he could ill afford. He maneuvered the horse horizontally across the road. It presented more of a target to the bows but it also gave him more room to shift and protected those two unmounted behind him while Arenath strung his bow and faced those orcs that had gathered behind them. If the enemy were smart they wouldn't shoot the horse. A panicked, hurt animal in this small a space could spell disaster for all of them, not just their quarry.

"Be off, slaves of darkness!" Fedorian challenged them, the reins loose in his hand. "You are blocking the road."

His black-handled knife was drawn and glittered across his lap as what appeared to be the leader, a muscular, black-skinned fellow whose filthy, matted head almost reached the horse's eyes loped up and halted just within striking distance, a leer pulling at blackened teeth. One of his comrades snickered in Aragorn's direction and snapped his teeth in an obscene mime of eating.

Arenath nudged the man behind him with a sharp glance at his partner. "There's too many."

Fedorian didn't look at him but kept his eyes on the leader whose long, hairy arm stretched steadily toward the horse's bridle. A second later, he hopped back with a screech, his hand lying in the dust. The sound electrified the others who surged forward. One fell with a knife in his chest before the others leaped at the horse which whinnied and frantically retreated from the creatures digging hard nails into its flesh and clawing at its mane.

With deadly accuracy Arenath sent arrow after arrow into the ranks of those swarming up the path. But the horse was growing more and more terrified as bodies tangled in its legs and the heavy stench of blood stung its nostrils. It whinnied and pulled its head suddenly sidewise. Aragorn's hands were still tied to the mount's saddle horn. When the animal lurched, the rope yanked taut and sent him slamming sideways into an orc who instantly grabbed his arms, nearly lifting the young human off the ground as it snarled into his face, its sour breath rolling over his nostrils in waves.

Aragorn raked his boot heel hard down the orc's unprotected shin, forcing the creature to drop him with a strangled yelp. Cursing, it backhanded him viciously across the face, splitting his lip. The man fell hard into the dust which was vibrating under the chaos of battle. Fedorian's mount shied from his body, its hooves landing dangerously close to the ranger's head as he struggled to squirm out of its way.

A heavy iron-shod boot landed hard on his back and ground down against his injuries. The flash of pain took him out of the fight as he momentarily forgot how to breathe. The horse's sharp scream exploded in his ears and he caught the barest glimpse of hooves flashing towards his skull. He actually felt the wind of a flailing hoof as it flew inches over his head and caught his assailant directly between the eyes, slaying him instantly.

Miraculously unharmed, the ranger staggered, the loose rope trailing around his legs.

Arenath spotted the young human struggling out of the melee and took careful aim with his last arrow. It flew straight into the eye of a large monster bearing down on the human and at once the elf was at his side, pulled a knife and began to saw at the human's bonds which had jerked tight enough to cut into the tender skin. The tips of his fingers were purple.

"The bluff files down in a few miles…if you can get that far…" Arenath abruptly released the man to disarm an orc bearing down on him with a scimitar. He savagely kicked it hard in the chest. For a minute, its arms windmilled desperately trying to keep its balance before air opened up beneath it and it fell screeching into the gorge.

"Come with me," Aragorn grabbed his shoulder, steering him out of the way of an orc that leapt from the top of one of the boulders and, missing his quarry, followed his brethren over the edge.

Arenath only shook his head and seized the man's half-severed bonds. His knife flashed once. "I cannot."

As soon as his hands were free, Aragorn lunged for the skittish horse, making a grab for his sword which was slung just within reach. His fingers brushed the cold, diamond-shaped pommel. Without warning, a knife hilt smashed his fingers. Recoiling, Aragorn cradled his injured hand against his chest. A curious numbness rang through his second and third fingers. He didn't want to think they might be broken.

Fedorian glared at him over his shoulder even as his knife impaled an orc grabbing for his reins. Enemy dispatched, he turned his dripping knife on the ranger still within reach. Aragorn backed away but slipped on the blood-slick rocks and fell hard again, cutting his hands and sending a powerfully painful jolt through his fingers that robbed him of movement. Reversing the grip of his blade, Fedorian held his weapon by the tip, preparing to flick it into the helpless ranger.

Aragorn looked up at the elf and realized he was not going to be tortured anymore after all. Faced with losing his prize to the overwhelming press of orcs, Fedorian would rather kill his prey than relinquish it. The thought gave the ranger no comfort as he stared his would-be killer down. Even though the battle clashed still around them with orcs clawing at each other, sound faded from Aragorn's ears, his sight blurred. Something buzzed over his head.

The Galadhel suddenly pitched forward over the neck of his mount with a half-stifled cry of surprise, nearly unseated as the knife dropped from his startled hand. An arrow protruded from his shoulder. Aragorn scrambled up in surprise.

The arrow had not come from the orcs.

The man's eyes caught a flash of raven hair and the grim, dark face of Carlóme as she fitted another arrow to her borrowed bow. The next shot hissed within an inch of Fedorian's face. The elf wrapped his long fingers around the shaft in him and snapped it defiantly. Despite obvious pain, something flickered across his face as he caught sight of the ranger's freed hands. His eyes flew to Arenath.

Around the bend, came a rallying shout and the thunder of hooves announced the rest of Carlóme's band charging into the fray. They drove the orcs right off the cliff and back under a barrage of sword strokes and arrows. Soon the shelf was empty save for the dead, the two elves and the human.

Startled by the suddenness of the orcs' massive defeat, Aragorn sat blankly where he had fallen until a flash of gold drew his eyes up the rocky crags. A burst of energy went off inside his chest as he saw Haldir leap down towards him.

"Daro!"

An unseen blow caught Aragorn in the jaw, spinning him around and slamming him into the earth again. Fedorian grabbed the ranger up, twisting his bruised arm up until the ranger fell to his knees.

Haldir froze, still high on the rocks. Every muscle in his body contracted as he held up a hand to still the others' instinctive rush. Fedorian would not hesitate to kill Aragorn. He waited for the next move, his saber gripped tightly in his hands.

"Drop it, Haldir."

Haldir complied, his gaze darting towards Arenath who hesitatingly brought his eyes up. He stood closest to the two on the ground below.

"He has been a very interesting guest," Fedorian continued almost conversationally, picking his own bloody knife up without relinquishing his tight grasp on the dazed young man. "I must admit I never expected to entertain the Heir of Elendil. How perfect is it, that the descendant of one who allowed so many of our brothers to die in battle, will die now by an elf's hand?"

"What's he saying?" Carlóme hissed in frustration as Haldir gestured impatiently at her to be quiet.

"You will not touch him." Haldir's voice rang out, low and dangerous.

Fedorian reversed the weapon, holding it out hilt first towards the slowly advancing elf. "Or perhaps you would like to have the honor, Haldir? I know how much you liked to make it quick. And now so does he." He wrenched Aragorn's arm brutally, making the ranger groan through clenched teeth.

This time Haldir's eyes caught Aragorn's. His friend looked bad, pale and bloodstained. But it wasn't the man's wounds that made the elf's heart clench painfully. It was the knowledge in his eyes. He knew. Valar, he knew! Haldir turned his face away quickly. He was afraid of the recrimination, the disgust he would see in the ranger's eyes and he needed all his strength to deal with this first.

"Haldir, don't—!" The crack of the pommel against Aragorn's teeth was audible.

"Severing the vein in a man's neck can drain a body of blood in minutes, adan. Do not test me," the murderous elf spat, the lethal tip of his knife gouging the ranger's jaw until the stubble crimsoned. Neck straining back, his mouth tasting of blood, Aragorn tried hard to concentrate on breathing without choking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of grey.

A hand suddenly latched around his forearm and wrestled the knife away from the ranger's throat. Fedorian lost hold of his weapon. Like lightning, the older Galadhel spun and struck Arenath forcibly across the face. The sound of the slap like steel striking wet fruit made Aragorn wince in sympathy.

Sprawled on his back, Arenath partially outstretched his hand as though to ward the other away, blood trickling down his cheek. "End this, gon nin. Geilrín and Silivren wouldn't want you to do this."

Fedorian let out an angry hiss like a trodden-on adder, the fingers of one hand clenched where the knife used to be.

Aragorn stared wide-eyed at the other elf. He knew what Arenath had done for him and why. Wriggling around, he hoisted himself up on his forearms, scooting out of the murderous elf's reach. He automatically flinched and froze when Fedorian's livid eyes closed on him again.

But it was not to him that the elf spoke. "You did this to him, Haldir. You put these ideas into his head. He was never so weak until you came."

As soon as he'd seen the knife drop, Haldir had raced down the incline to within a few yards of the elves and their captive. His gaze darted from Arenath still on the ground to Aragorn who was still far too close to Fedorian.

"I said nothing to him that he did not already know and feel in his own heart. This has gone on for far too long, Fedorian, and you know it. This has turned into an obsession. It will destroy you if you keep going as you are."

Behind him, Carlóme and the others crouched on the rocks. The dark woman had an arrow drawn to Saeryn's bow in her hands.

Fedorian's eyes flickered towards them. With a lethalness that chilled the blood, he drew his long, black-handled knife. Aragorn tried to edge out of the way but the palms of his left hand abruptly vanished into open air. He recoiled sharply as he realized he was on the brink of the ledge. Rocks waited hungrily below.

Fedorian trapped the man's other hand under his heel. "How do you think this will end, Haldir?" he asked, the casuality marred by the tremble of anger in his tone as he ground down on the broken fingers. Aragorn's face contorted with agony though no sound escaped his mouth. "I will capitulate peacefully and allow this pitiful specimen to go free?"

"You cannot stand forever," Haldir said, eyeing the glistening patch slowly spreading around the splintered arrow in the elf's shoulder. His own face was sheened with sweat, the pain in his side growing worse by the minute and he found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

Fedorian laughed darkly. "I have known worse."

Arenath had regained his feet and wiped the blood from his cheek, leaving a long crimson smear along the corner of his mouth. Fedorian looked at him warily as he took a wavering step closer.

"Please, my friend, they will let us go. They're going to let us go home. Home." Arenath's eyes filled with longing even as Carlóme shot an incredulous look in Haldir's direction which the marchwarden did not return.

Fedorian shook his head pityingly at the other elf. "Is that what lie they told you, Arenath? We have no home. There is nothing left but the hunt."

"I cannot do this anymore," the younger elf was starting to shake, his voice wavering out of control. "You said… we needed to revenge them… They are revenged. They are revenged a hundred times over and yet you are not stopping! It's never going to stop, is it? You don't know how... You don't feel anything anymore! Do you even remember their names? Your wife and daughter, do you even know?"

"Do not dare tell me—" Fedorian began thunderously but for the first time, Arenath overrode him.

"I never got to call Silivren hervess or you Adar. That's all I ever wanted. I was content," No one moved except Arenath as he, seemingly completely unaware of the danger, moved closer and closer to the edge of the precipice where his friend stood with the young human under his knife. "This has to end. I will stop you if I have to."

"Don't be a fool, Arenath," the corner of Fedorian's lips curled as though he might smile though his voice was cold. "You could never best me in battle."

"I don't want to. But I will. Let him go."

"It is men like him," Fedorian jabbed the knife furiously in Aragorn's direction. "that have made you suffer so. Not I!"

"No. He showed me there could be peace," Arenath said with the slightest smile. His eyes fell on the ranger. "I want to forget…I am tired."

"You are weak and pathetic. You are letting your compassion get the better of you when you should have left that behind in the fire that killed your wife!" Fedorian snarled, his voice rising heatedly. Arenath winced as though whip-lashed but his shoulders straightened and he looked at his commander with new eyes as though something had finally become clear to him.

"I never saw how dangerously you were sinking…I never saw the terrible hate in your heart—until it was too late."

Fedorian scoffed at him. "And now what? You offer me condolence? Pity? I need neither from you," he spat dismissively. "There's only this left."

He turned the knife on Estel.

It happened in a split second.

Aragorn stared up into the dark Galadhel's white, burning face, saw Haldir lurch forward towards the knife. Arenath grabbed his friend by the shoulder with both hands just as he brought the blade slashing out…

Haldir halted as though he had hit a glass wall. Aragorn blinked and slowly cracked first one eye open then the other, wondering that he was still alive. Fedorian was no longer facing him and Arenath had staggered back several paces.

The smaller elf's face drained of color, sweat beading at his temples and drenching his golden hair several shades darker. His eyes flickered and his hands fumbled at his chest.

"No," Aragorn saw him start to fall and hurtled past Fedorian faster than the other could react, just barely snagging onto the elf's tunic.

But they were too near the edge and there was nothing to grab hold of. Unable to compensate for the elf's sudden weight, Aragorn felt his heart lurch. Depth opened up beneath them as they fell straight down off the ledge. Wind rushed past his ears and an uncomfortable jolt rose up as his stomach rushed up into his throat. The next instant burst in a startling thud as they stopped, rudely halted by an uneven outcropping that protruded out of the cliff wall.

Aragorn landed hard but unhurt on the grassy surface but Arenath, thrown farther than the man, got caught on the very tip. Too dazed to pull himself up, he was slipping away. The ranger groped wildly and latched onto his right wrist as his body swung sideways, his weight dangling off the precipice where the rocks waited far below.

"Arenath," the ranger gasped, looking down into the elf's ashen face.

Arenath wasn't looking at him. He brought the fingers of his free hand up before his eyes. They were drenched with crimson like the fingers of a glove and Aragorn realized with a dreadful sinking sensation that Fedorian's knife had not found its intended mark in his body but lay deeply embedded in Arenath's chest, shoved even more forcibly in by the fall. Only the hilt protruded out of his tunic now.

Aragorn blinked against watering eyes. The steadily increasing pressure on his broken fingers did nothing to help his waning strength but fear had wiped his mind of almost all realization of pain.

"Give me your other hand." His hands were slick and numb; he could feel the elf's wrist sliding through his grasp inch by excruciating inch as he stretched his other hand down. He spoke quietly and calmly despite the tremor in his hands. "Arenath, listen to me,"

The elf closed his eyes and dropped his forehead against his straining arm.

"Arenath! Give me your other hand! I can't hold onto you!"

"It's no use, Estel…I am dying anyway…"

"No," the man shook his head, unwilling to let the elf go after what he'd done. "You saved my life… I'm not going to let you die…"

"I'm losing my grip."

He tried to tighten his grasp. "Avo leithio! Don't let go!"

"It's too… bad,"Arenath whispered as though he hadn't heard the ranger. "Rivendell…sounded nice." His eyes closed.

"NO!"

Aragorn felt the fingers slip away, the weight jerk out from under him and pressed his face hard into the grass as horror took over. Grief flooded throughout his body for the loss of the immortal life. When he could finally move again, he dragged his weary, hurting body back from the edge and leaned against the rock wall, calling upwards for anyone who could hear him.

"Haldir! Carlóme! Anybody! Haldir!"

He thought he heard someone shout but his head blurred dizzily and the sun beat down on his position. Hot tears still stung the corners of his eyes though the frigid wind burned them off his cheeks. A rope looped on the end snaked down into his lap. He mechanically slipped it over his middle and waited for the telltale tug before getting his feet under him. Clinging to the rope with his uninjured hand, he half-scrambled, half-let whoever was on the other end pull him up. The rope was doubled around a small sapling for added leverage.

Forever and an instant passed before strong hands grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and hauled him safely back up onto the road. He rolled over and blinked in the bright sunshine until his rescuer's visage sharpened.

"Haldir," he whispered, his voice cracking.

Standing in the middle of the road amongst orc corpses, Carlóme, Saeryn and Kari all had their weapons, bows and javelin, trained on Fedorian who had eyes only for the exhausted human. He spoke only one word.

"Arenath?"

"I'm sorry," Aragorn said with genuine regret. "He's gone."

Fedorian's dead eyes glittered with hate. "You killed him."

Crack!

The elven rogue dropped in a limp heap, his golden hair spilling in the dust.

"That's enough out of him." Carlóme plunged her javelin which she had used as a handy club into the dirt beside the unconscious elf's head. "You look like you've seen better days, Strider."

The ranger smiled weakly through his broken mouth. "I never thought I'd be happy to see you."

"The feeling's mutual."

"Are you much hurt?" Saeryn dropped to her knees beside him, her brow furrowing as she took in his battered face and his left hand cradled in his right. But the ranger wasn't looking at her. His gaze was fixed on the cliff edge. "I lost him."

Haldir stood at the edge of the precipice, looking down at the rocks below. His shaded eyes caught Aragorn's sorrow and pain-filled ones as the ranger shook his head uncontrollably.

"I'm so sorry, Haldir… I tried to help him… He was kind to me. I didn't—"

In two strides, Haldir was beside him, silencing him with a hand pressed over his mouth to still his apologies. "It was no fault of yours, Estel. Now answer her. How are you hurt?" Haldir repeated Saeryn's question.

The man didn't see how his friend could be so pragmatic when Arenath, his comrade in arms, his blood brother, lay lifeless but he took a deep breath and tried to get his whirling emotions under control. "A couple bruises… it's not bad…I—I'm really cold."

"And your fingers are broken," the elf marveled, lifting the man's rough hand gingerly between his own and eyeing the grotesque displacement of the fingers Fedorian had smashed with his knife hilt. "Do you feel them?"

"I'm cold," the man shuddered, closing his eyes.

Haldir rifled in his satchel for a moment and withdrew a small flask that swished when he shook it. He pressed the rim to the man's lips and squeezed the bottle lightly. "Here. Drink. It will warm you."

Too numb to do anything other than obey, Aragorn let the soothing, oddly sweet liquid trickle down his sore throat. Instant warmth spread from his stomach to the tips of his toes and fingertips. A sweeping sense of relief coupled with agony as the pain of broken bones replaced the numbness. He curled over his side briefly but Haldir pressed him back against the rock face as Saeryn temporarily splinted the ranger's fingers. She would properly reset them once they returned to town.

Carlóme however was busy circling her long-sought enemy. Her dark eyes narrowed with triumph even as she nudged the dark elf hard in the side to make sure he was really out. Twenty years she'd been waiting for this. Twenty years to avenge the death of her brother. For a moment, she closed her eyes and gripped the shaft of her javelin as though in prayer. Then, her eyes flew open and she snapped orders, "Kari, tie his hands. Miren, help me get him up on the horse."

"What are you going to do with him?" Aragorn asked as Haldir supported him waveringly to his feet.

"Take him back with us," Carlóme grunted as she heaved the elf's limp body over the back of his own horse, tying him down with rope she found in the abandoned pack to secure him. "That bounty'll fetch a pretty price if we bring him back alive for a public execution."

Haldir's lips tightened but he didn't say anything as he helped Aragorn up onto Lintedal's back and swung up behind him. He pressed his horse ahead of the others, ignoring the jolting pain in his side. He would deal with it later. Right now, all that mattered was the more than half-frozen ranger on the saddle in front of him.

Aragorn couldn't bring himself to feel anything except the strong arms wrapped securely around his chest to keep him in the saddle. His head jogged limply against the elf captain's shoulder. Arenath's body was falling farther and farther behind.

Exhaustion and the loss of adrenalin pulled his eyelids shut as he pressed his face into his friend's tunic. It smelled of dust and cooling sweat but it comforted the wounded young man. It meant safety. He was safe. He didn't want to know what he must smell like. At the moment he didn't really care as Lintedal's smooth steps rocked him into a light doze.

It seemed only seconds later when a light touch on his shoulder roused him. "Wake. We're here."

The words rumbled under his ear as Aragorn's eyelids fluttered open. He was still resting against Haldir's soft tunic. Lintedal had stopped and the absence of the horse's soothing rhythm woke him fully. They were back outside the inn in Merdon. Aragorn felt a sweep of sheer relief as he realized they were as close to home and security as they were going to get until they reached Rivendell. For a minute, he allowed himself to thank the Valar he had survived and prayed he'd see his brothers and father again soon.

"I can't get off the horse until you wake up," the elf muttered with his usual dry humor. There was a tightness in his tone though that forced Aragorn up straight, smothering a groan. Every muscle in his body ached and he stank of sweat and horse. However concern for his friend won over his own discomfort as he wondered what injuries the elf had sustained. Arenath had said humans… But thinking of Arenath proved too painful at the moment.

With difficulty and a remonstrating twinge in his back, he twisted in the saddle to regard the elf captain's haggard, grey face. There was an unfathomable expression in his eyes that Aragorn's overwrought mind couldn't interpret right now.

"Are you all right?"

"Get off." The elf stared at him steadily, his eyes narrowing with tired annoyance.

Saeryn reached up a hand to help him down and Aragorn accepted it as he dismounted awkwardly. "I'll get him settled," she told him as she supported the ranger up the front steps of the inn. Miren and Kari had the job of escorting Fedorian's still-unconscious form to a temporary holding place.

Haldir nudged Lintedal towards the stables without looking back. He didn't realize Carlóme had followed him until she spoke.

"He's a sturdy one, your ranger. No mistake." She looked over at him when no predictably scathing rejoinder came. "Aren't you going to tell me he's not 'your ranger.'"

"I'm sorry I wasn't listening." He swung down from the saddle, landing with a sharp inhale that sounded uncomfortably loud in the stillness of the stables where nothing but quiet horse breaths disturbed the air.

"How bad a shape are you in?" She'd been watching him closely.

He rolled his eyes more in chagrin at himself than her as he led Lintedal into her stall.

Carlóme propped her elbow up on the door watching him as he untacked his mare. "You both are mad and brave and way too lucky."

He snorted then curled a hand around his side. "Perhaps not so lucky."

"Something broken?" she leaned forward far too interestedly as he touched his side, pressing lightly.

"The horse…when the snare went off…" was all he managed by way of explanation. The pain and lack of breath was making him dizzy. He leaned a minute on Lintedal's foamy flank.

She poked his side experimentally making him jump. "Yep, I think it's broken."

"Thank you for the surety, healer."

"It's your own damn fault. If you'd waited for us in the first place—"

"If I had waited for you, I might not have a broken rib, I would probably have been spared this conversation, and Strider would be dead," he shot back, too irritated and tired to deal with her recriminations right now.

She shrugged carelessly. "I'm just saying you probably shouldn't let Strider see you like this. He'll rip his own stitches out worrying over you. I've seen it. Can't imagine why."

As resentful as he was of the way she said it, he had to admit she had a point. Aragorn didn't need anything else to think or feel guilty about right now. Saeryn could look after him for a few moments longer. He seated himself gingerly on a hay bale while Carlóme disappeared inside. She returned three minutes later with a pack slung over her shoulder.

"Some of this is left over from Brenn. Zaren said he woke up while we were gone."

"Good news."

"Yeah." She dumped the pack beside him and extracted a thick wad of bandages.

He stared at them apprehensively. "Am I even going to be able to move after this?"

She didn't reply and instead jerked her head at his tunic. "Off."

He crooked an eyebrow at her.

She leered mockingly at him. "What? You think you're gonna show me something I've never seen before?"

He let her wait a minute longer then shrugged stiffly out of his damp, dusty garment, rather glad to get the filthy thing off if truth be told. He hadn't changed his clothes since last he'd left the inn.

She worked in silence and he was glad for it. Closing his eyes, he leaned back and rested his head against the stall's wooden side. Weariness was not a feeling he would willingly admit even to himself but he was feeling it now. He pictured Aragorn probably getting the same treatment in Saeryn's clutches, being fussed over and force-fed whatever awful concoction she had on hand. He almost smiled before he remembered the reason the ranger was in such a condition was because of him. He grunted when Carlóme tightened the bandages with a jerk to wake him up.

"Easy."

He almost felt her gaze rake his closed eyelids. "Brenn told us a few things too—about what happened," A hunger overtook her tone as though this was something she'd been wanting to discuss with him, the reason she had followed him alone into the stables and so thoughtfully tended his injuries. "Or, rather, about what he heard. He's got a good memory."

The reply was noncommittal though he had an uncannily disturbed feeling he knew where this was going. "He's a smart child."

"That he is. I was right though wasn't I?" she said, leaning back on the toes of her boots and tilting her head back to look up into his face. "You did kill the ones who hurt you."

His eyes snapped open and he stood up, shrugging his tunic over his newest bandages. Every inch of his skin burned as, clutching his side, he finished knotting off the band with his back to her.

"You got your revenge on them, didn't you?"

"Why did you even come?" he spat accusingly at her, spinning on his boot heel. "Last I was told, you were intent on protecting your own."

She looked at him for a long time, undaunted by his glare. With a slow nod, she gathered up her things perhaps realizing she was the last person he would ever discuss his past with—if he talked about it at all. With a hand on the door jamb, she paused and said without looking over her shoulder, "I was."

He blinked as the door swung shut behind her with a click.


	18. Respite

Haldir mounted the last two stairs with increasing difficulty, pain spiking through his side as he half-lurched up the final step. As he paused for breath against the banister, he glanced down the silent hall towards the crack of light coming from a door at the end. Saeryn's back appeared as she nudged it open with her shoulder, her arms full of Aragorn's damp, tattered clothes. She stopped when she saw him.

She gave him a soft, weary smile and answered his unspoken question. "I've got him all tucked up and a fire going. He needs to stay warm."

"How is he?" He wasn't talking about Estel's physical injuries. Not entirely at least.

She adjusted her grip awkwardly as the ragged tunic slipped out of her grasp and flopped onto the floor. "He dropped right off to sleep as soon as he stopped shivering. I think he'll be all right. I don't want you to wake him though," she added as she scooped the garment up. "He needs the rest and I've got to get these things to the laundry."

Haldir nodded dutifully as she bypassed him, heading downstairs. He had no intention of waking the ranger. Pushing off the banister, he paused again just outside Aragorn's room. The partition just allowed him to catch a glimpse of dark hair tumbled over a mound of white pillows. But the man's face was turned to the wall away from the door. Haldir couldn't tell if he was still sleeping or not. Though he had gotten this far, he didn't think he would actually be capable of setting foot in the room. Just the thought of sitting there beside Aragorn's injured, unconscious body made his insides curl and burn with guilt.

If he was sleeping though, he reasoned, surely it wouldn't hurt. Aragorn need never know he was there. He could just slip in, make sure he still breathed, and out again. Steeling himself with a deep exhale, he thrust aside his misgivings and pushed the door inward.

As Saeryn had said, a fire burned bright in the small hearth with plenty of wood stacked beside it. The bed lay against the wall opposite. Haldir approached slowly, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. He glanced back almost longingly towards the door then, cursing himself for a coward, took the last two steps to Aragorn's side.

The ranger was fast asleep. His skin was warm and flushed, a far better shade than the ghastly pallor he'd come in with. His now properly bandaged fingers rested lightly on his chest but the rest of his injuries were obscured under the grey coverlet. Though he had only been missing for a day and a half, his face held a lean look and dark bags worse than Haldir's hung under his eyes. Auburn locks tumbled around his still youthful face, one or two stirred by his soft, even breaths, the only sound breaking the stillness save an intermittent crackle from a piece of log breaking off in the grate.

Haldir stifled a little sigh of relief. This was tolerable.

"The trouble is when you wake," he murmured softly to the sleeping ranger. "What do I tell you? Oh, by the way, Estel, you are friends with a murderer. Perhaps you would have been better served traveling home unaccompanied," he laughed bitterly at himself and stared out the window though the imprint of the ranger's pale face stayed before him. "I would not blame you for turning me away. You should. It's safer for both of us."

He leaned his forehead against the glass as he had the night he had first discovered Estel was missing, when the cold, unrelenting reach of the past had caught up with him. Who had paid the worse price? He closed his eyes, his fingers gripping the windowsill so hard, his knuckles whitened. Tension knotted across his shoulders as Haldir looked up at his image in the glass.

Reflected glints of smoky color shone from underneath the ranger's eyelids in the mirrored surface. Haldir wondered how long he'd been awake.

"What's that look for?" Aragorn smiled tiredly though it pulled at his battered face and split lip. "Am I that much of a mess?"

"Yes."

Aragorn watched him blearily out of the corner of his eye as Haldir picked up the poker from beside the grate and poked the embers unnecessarily. His gaze couldn't help being drawn to the elf's open collar and the finger-thick bruise circling his throat. Though Branock and his men had attacked him several days ago, it still seemed unhealed. It looked even deeper and nastier in the dim light, a more purplish black than blotted yellow. The pressure the noose must have exerted to make such a mark made Aragorn's stomach turn over. It seemed ages ago since he'd wished his friend luck in the defile before they'd rescued Brenn.

"Arenath told me what happened." The firelight seemed to dip as though it knew the one who belonged to that name could no longer answer to it.

Haldir knew what the ranger was looking at but didn't look up. "How did he know?"

"He shot one of the men." Aragorn closed his eyes.

"I don't remember that."

"Are you all right?" the man's eyes reopened concernedly.

"You ask me that and you are the one lying here?"

Aragorn didn't reply. They were cruel. Arenath's voice had shaken. But thinking of Arenath was painful and he tried to put him out of his mind. Clearly Haldir was up and about. In a better condition than he himself was. But the strangulation mark, the rigid way in which he held his shoulders— Aragorn's fuzzy consciousness was alert enough to pick up that something wasn't well.

"What's wrong?" He didn't expect an honest answer and predictably received none. Though he's hoped for a little leeway after all. But when the elf didn't answer him at all as though he hadn't even heard, he pushed himself up onto his forearms. Haldir looked up quickly at the movement.

"Nothing. I'm…tired." He replaced the poker on its hook and made for the door. "I am going to get scolded again—Saeryn said I wasn't to wake you."

"Haldir?"

The elf captain froze with his hand on the door handle. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited, praying Aragorn would not ask him for answers he didn't want to give. He turned slowly on the spot to see the man leaning up on one elbow with a furrow forming between his brows.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

Haldir nodded once and escaped the room.

"You've been avoiding me."

"Huh," Haldir, frowning, didn't look up from the small knife he was sharpening. "I thought we were playing hide-and-seek."

"Very funny."

Inviting himself, Aragorn with only a hint of stiffness pulled a seat up to the corner table at the back of the Goat's nearly empty common room. His injuries were mending nicely though his fingers were slower to heal than the bruises. After Saeryn finally deemed him well enough to be up and about, he had been trying with increasing persistence through the last few days to talk to Haldir who had become conspicuously absent whenever the man happened to be looking for him. He found excuses to go for long walks where Saeryn would not allow the ranger to follow and skipped meals in an effort to avoid company other than Aragorn's. Carlóme and the rest were still celebrating their long-awaited triumph and made private conversation almost impossible.

Finally after three and a half days of this, Aragorn had enough and successfully cornered his friend, determined to find out what was wrong. He had felt the crevices opening up between them again and resolved to not let it happen because of his shame or Haldir's pride. But the right words were still hard to find and Haldir certainly wasn't going to open up the conversation. He fidgeted with Barahir now back in its rightful place on his forefinger.

Aragorn glanced again at the little knife that had so much of his friend's attention. "Didn't you give that to Brenn?"

"I did."

Silence again. This was much harder than Aragorn had anticipated. Glancing out the window and finding no inspiration there, he decided to dive right in. "I'm sorry, Haldir."

That got his attention. Haldir frowned at the wood grain but Aragorn, now that he had started, didn't want to stop in case his courage failed him.

"I've been going through it in my head over and over and over and I know there was something…I could have held on longer. But I swear I didn't let him fall."

Haldir blinked, shocked. Aragorn thought he was still mourning Arenath. While in a sense it was true, he would always grieve for his friend, Arenath had made his choice. And, in the end, it had been the right one. He didn't have to sit here dealing with the aftermath.

"I don't blame you for his death, Estel. There was nothing you could have done," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice low as possible for a man at the bar had looked over at them curiously.

"But then…" Aragorn stopped fiddling with his ring long enough to dart a confused glance up at his friend. "Why are you angry with me? What did I do?"

Haldir rolled his eyes and set the knife down with a clatter. Of course, Aragorn would blame himself. He should have known. "You idiot. I am not angry with you. How can I be? Arenath knew what he was doing. You didn't do anything wrong. In fact you did more than most probably would have. You certainly didn't put the knife in him."

"If you're not angry with me, then why do you—?" He didn't get a chance to finish for Brenn came noisily in lugging one of the smaller firkins from the cellar.

Though the basement was cool, his brow was slick from exertion as he shoved his burden up onto the counter. Wiping his streaked temples on his sleeve, his wandering gaze fell on the pair in the corner. Aragorn smiled kindly at him but the lad's eyes weren't on him but on the one sitting across from him. Almost faster than the eye could follow, Brenn tore his gaze away and whisked out the door without a word.

Aragorn frowned slightly, wondering what that had been all about.

But Haldir sighed. The boy hadn't spoken to him once since he had given Haldir his knife back yesterday. Though Carlóme said she had explained to him that Haldir had done the most to rescue him, Brenn was having a hard time bouncing back from the trauma Fedorian had inflicted on him. He couldn't stand to be in the same room as one who even remotely resembled his former captor.

Thankfully the double doors burst open again before he had to explain any of that and a palm-sized burlap sack clinked heavily on the table announcing Carlóme's victorious return from the town hall where she had retrieved her bounty at last.

"Well, they finally did it," Zaren announced as Carlóme and the others pulled up chairs. "They sentenced him."

Carlóme perched herself on the bar. "We told the elders what he did to Brenn to Zaren and you, Strider." The ranger had declined going with them to the trial. "Couple o' hunters found Yyrin's body up in the woods. They didn't need anymore evidence than that."

"What's this for?" Aragorn tugged open the slip knot sack and dumped a pile of gold coins onto the wooden surface.

Carlóme helped herself to the contents of the firkin Brenn had brought up and exchanged a pointed glance with Zaren who was looking meaningfully at her. But it was the rakish thief who ended up answering.

"We figured you two might as well have your cut now—you've more than earned it," he said with another glance at Carlóme who remained silent but nodded grudgingly.

Clearly they thought this was quite a magnanimous gesture. Aragorn carefully schooled his face blank as he looked over at his companion.

Haldir stared at the coins.

"What are they going to do with him?" Aragorn asked slowly with a cautious, sidelong glance at the marchwarden whose attention was still fixed on the table but the tension in his shoulders showed he was listening.

"Hang him," the dark woman said succinctly with a distinct amount of relish. "Execution's set for tomorrow in the middle of the square. They've got the scaffold built already. You two going to stay for it? It ought to be good."

"No," Aragorn said quickly.

Haldir still didn't stir. Everyone was treating this as though it were some sort of festival, a cause for celebration or merriment. Death was never something to be celebrated, regardless of who the recipient was. Tomorrow, he could see it, the roaring, jeering crowd, merchants hawking their wares under the gallows, children laughing and pointing as the pale prisoner was led out of the cells and paraded from the gaol to the midst of the town where everyone would crane their necks over their neighbor's shoulders for a glimpse.

Fedorian would be silent to the end, proud, erect as any soldier had been taught to die. The guards wouldn't even remove the chains, more weight that way when they maneuvered him over the trap door and slipped the thirteen-looped, greased rope around his neck. Maybe, if Haldir could bring himself to stand there at the back of the crowd, he would see his former commander's eyes flicker towards him, one last, long look before the drop.

"Keep your blood money." One harsh shove sent the sack flying, its contents spilling across the room rolling away under tables and chairs. Carlóme scrambled for the coins as he stalked out.

Aragorn searched him out after he had thought a suitable time had passed for the elf to cool off. He found him in the weedy, ill-kept garden whose only ornament was a stately slightly cramped maple tree in the center of the weeds. The bark rubbed rough against his palm as he craned his neck up towards the thick fork in the branches where he could just see his friend's dim shape.

"How did you get up there?"

"I climbed."

Aragorn rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "Well, obviously. I meant, you probably shouldn't be climbing at all. Saeryn said she would tan your hide for disobeying her very strict orders," the human's bright, teasing smile told his friend exactly how he felt about something as trivial as Saeryn's "orders."

"Ha."

The younger man slowly sobered as the elf didn't say anything further. "They thought they were being generous, Haldir. No one's—"

"I am not in the mood to talk about it, Estel."

"All right then," the ranger said, circling the trunk. "We don't need to talk."

Haldir peered over the edge of the branch he was reclining on when he heard the rustle of leaves and Aragorn's steady breaths as the ranger pulled himself up almost one-handed.

"What are you doing, you mad fool! Your fingers—" Alarmed, the elf grabbed the man's shoulder and almost bodily dragged him into the safe cradle of the boughs.

Aragorn glared challengingly at him through a curtain of his dark hair. He blew the tendrils out of his face but his eyes didn't lose their sparkle. "Oh? Don't tell me you didn't strain your ribs—which might I remind you, Saeryn will kill you if she finds out—when you climbed up here?"

"That is different. At least I have full use of my hands."

"Hands shmands," the ranger waved said limb airily wincing slightly as the newly throbbing fingers remonstrated him for taking such liberties. He fingered his wrist lightly where red loops circled it like a bracelet—the remnants of rope burns. Haldir followed his gaze and his expression saddened almost imperceptibly but Aragorn didn't notice. He looked as though he were steeling himself to say something and Haldir waited anxiously for it. But again the ranger surprised him.

"I am sorry for what they're doing. It's not right."

The man raised his eyes and looked his friend full in the face. There was no hidden guile behind his eyes. He spoke the simple truth. When he saw Haldir's confusion, he said, "Arenath told me…well, he told me a lot. Death shouldn't be such a spectacle."

That Aragorn could say that about the elf who had tortured him remorselessly made Haldir look at him as he had never looked at him before. It was a penetrating but softened look.

"Thank you."

Aragorn just shrugged. Frowning a little, he leaned forward and pressed lightly against the elf's bruised throat. "Does it still hurt?" he asked with a quick glance at his friend's complexion to make sure he didn't feel uncomfortable.

"No," Haldir said, wincing. He didn't look at the ranger but he didn't retreat either. The cool, gentle fingertips soothed the ache a little. The hands of a king…He felt no revulsion in Aragorn's touch. If anything, it calmed his nerves and temper which had been so near the surface these past few weeks. That Aragorn was still willing to chase him up a tree and attempt to reason with him despite everything he had been through was a comforting thought in and of itself. They stayed like that for quiet minutes in the blue dusk.

Aragorn squeezed his eyes shut in an embarrassed grimace when his stomach gave a particularly loud gurgle.

A smirk quirked the corners of Haldir's lips as he leaned regretfully away from the man's healing touch. He frowned with false concentration. "You know, I can't be quite sure, but I think that is the signal for dinner."

"That loud, huh?" the ranger ruefully rubbed his lean stomach.

"'That loud,'" the elf echoed teasingly. "Your stomach would wake a stone troll."

The man's wide grin flashed in the dim light as he maneuvered himself slowly towards the next lowest branch. He paused when he realized the elf wasn't following him. "Are you coming?"

"You go ahead."

Aragorn didn't move. "You do need to eat something," he implored.

"Must I?" The elf's look of long-suffering was not wholly feigned.

"You don't have to sit and talk to anybody. Just eat something."

"Are going to be this insistent at every mealtime?"

"Yes."

"And give me no peace until I agree?"

"To no end."

Given the choice between enduring more concern-filled nagging, and already quite hungry himself, Haldir began to climb down after him. He jumped a mere six feet from the ground but landed awkwardly, clutching his side.

"Don't say it," he bristled, pulling back from Aragorn's steadying hands.

"I wasn't going to say anything!" the ranger protested with a deliberately unmerciful and altogether too mischievous look in his eye. "Certainly not "I told you so.""

"That," the elf said, a little too breathlessly to be casual, "was not a result of climbing up…but my getting down."

"Exactly why I told you you shouldn't be climbing in the first place."

Eager to change the subject, Haldir straightened. "So, dinner then?"

The common room was a boisterous and loud event. Patrons that night could talk of nothing else but the coming execution. The air was thick with yellow-green clouds of pipe smoke as men cramming the tables swapped stories and mulled over everything they ever knew, heard or invented about the exploits and capture of the so-called "ghost" that had been haunting Merdon for years. Carlóme's group was the center of attention and called on repeatedly to tell again their tale. But the Haradrim women demurred with a glance at the ranger and elf who had taken their usual small corner in the back of the room.

Fabor had broken his usual stinginess and provided his paying guests with his coveted silver and glassware from the cellars as well as uncorked several barrels of his finest unaged, blackthorn brandy for the evening.

Aragorn was glad to find his friend's mood lightened a bit more after a few cups of that most excellent vintage and actually convinced him to eat a little while talk buzzed around them, for the most part indistinguishable until one particular conversation rose above the rest. The table nearest them had their heads together, laughing amongst themselves.

"So what do you think we'll get for it?" a lanky-haired man asked in a low, guttural voice and with a greedy leer.

One of his companions thunked his mug down. "Well, we'll have to see if we can even manage to get it down in the first place. I mean, crowd's going to make maneuvering hard and the executioner's probably got his claws sunk in already and he ain't even dead yet."

Aragorn glanced across the table, hoping desperately that Haldir hadn't heard. But the elf had frozen with his fork halfway between his lips as though he had forgotten it was even there.

"Wonder if he'll wet himself when he swings."

Aragorn seized firm hold of his friend's sleeve as the elf captain made to stand.

"He's out of line," Haldir rebuffed the silent reprimand. "Let me go."

"I know he is. Sit down," Aragorn tugged him back into his seat. "You don't need another injury."

"Please, Estel, give me a little credit," a mocking little smile played about the elf soldier's lips as he gestured to the fellow who had last spoken. "He can barely set one foot in front of the other as it is."

"Exactly why you should sit down."

The lanky-haired man was still chuckling, his face very red. But he didn't seem to have noticed the slight contention his passing remark had caused. With a dissatisfied sigh and a last glare, Haldir dropped discontentedly back into his chair and polished off his drink with a long swallow.

"Where are you going?" Aragorn twisted in his seat as the elf stood up again.

He twitched his empty snifter in passing, his eyes fixed on the bar opposite. "Another."

Carlóme thumped down into an empty seat next to Aragorn. "At least we're not pilfering body parts," she said, jerking her head at the group next to theirs, still in intense discussion about how best to get their hands on the corpse tomorrow. She shook her head and poured herself another ale from the pitcher then offered it to Aragorn who declined with an upheld hand. He was still watching Haldir at the other end of the bar, making sure the elf wasn't making a nuisance of himself.

"He'll be all right."

The ranger faced her with a slight smile. "Then you don't know him very well."

"Do you?" Carlóme grinned to show the question was lightly meant. "Can you ever know elves?"

"Enough to encourage them not to push their luck," the ranger said darkly. "What's taking him so long?"

"Strider, relax, he's fine," Carlóme managed to dismiss his concern and prod a sleepy Narturi sitting nearby with the same movement. "Off to bed with you, Nari. I don't need you drowning in spilled ale."

Narturi smiled with sleepy fondness at her leader and obediently picked up her head with a last, longing glance along the bar.

"Go, moon-eyes!" Carlóme lobbed a nutshell playfully at the back of her head to get her moving. "For the last time, he's not chasing after little girls."

Narturi stuck her tongue out at the Harad woman which only made her laugh.

'I probably shouldn't have let him go up there again," Aragorn muttered to himself. "He's been a little overly indulgent already tonight."

"So what? He's got little enough reason to be. At least it's something."

When the man didn't respond save with another weak smile, she shrugged and brought her mug to her lips. "There now, he's coming back. Don't get your trousers in a twist."

Haldir set his drink on the table and slid back into his seat, sparing the Haradrim woman a careless glance. "Was I missed?"

"Bitterly," Aragorn retorted dryly. "Don't drink that one so fast."

"Yes, Naneth."

"I meant I'm not paying for another."

"S'all right," Carlóme slapped the elf amiably on the back, almost knocking him into his drink. "Next one's all mine."

Haldir set his glass steadily on the table with a reassuring smile at Aragorn. "Take ease, Strider, I want to remain clear-headed… for a little while longer tonight anyway."

The man frowned slightly, not sure whether to be reassured or worried by that deliberately cryptic statement but before he could question the elf about it, a disturbance erupted over at the bar's far end.

The fellow who had been the subject of Haldir's ire earlier in the evening stood up, clearly inviting a farewell toast. He said something that was drowned in all the chatter but which his compatriots raucously cheered. He took a long draught of his drink and then spluttered and folded over the table, choking and retching. A shocked lull flittered across the room before a couple of his friends chuckled and one swiped his compatriot's cup, took one sniff and wrinkled his nose with a grin. One of Fabor's servants began cleaning up the mess while the man's friends pounded their groggy friend on the back and got him to his feet, laughing a good night to the room who shouted encouragement after them.

Haldir surveyed the scene with mild amusement. "Now, it seems our sophisticated friend can't put either foot in front of the other. Oops."

Carlóme snorted into her ale and, wiping foam flecks off her face, looked at the elf incredulously. "What'd you do to his drink?"

Sipping his own, Haldir shrugged far too innocently and braced his chair on two legs against the wall. "It seems to me someone must have just mixed the orders up. He must have gotten a mug of lamp oil instead of the honey brandy he's been plying all night."

The dark woman started to laugh while Aragorn glared at his friend disapprovingly but even he couldn't help the tinniest smile from pulling the muscles of his face. "You're incorrigible."

"And now, smug," the elf toasted the ranger's clever assessment. The grin faded from his face as he stared into the bottom of his glass. With a short glance towards the double doors, he swallowed down the bitterness the cheap drink left in his throat and pushed back his chair. The room was suddenly stuffy and overly crowded.

Aragorn sensed his change of mood and did not seem surprised when he got up from the table. He knew his friend preferred to be alone rather than in crowds but after their talk he wasn't sure the marchwarden wouldn't spend the rest of the night brooding.

"Do you want any company?" was all he managed.

"No."

As always when he needed to think, he left the bright lights and laughter behind and wandered out to the small, dusky paddock where the inn's horses huddled close together for warmth or rolled on the hard earth. Lintedal trotted up to him almost immediately, pushing her nose over the wooden slats. He stroked her long cheek.

Blood for blood, Fedorian deserved death. He had committed acts no elf, to his knowledge, had ever done before, regardless of cost to himself and to those he hurt. Arenath had been right. He did not care and he would not stop until he was killed. Why then did he, Haldir, feel so confused? A murderer deserved what he gave his victims. Right?

"I do not bite you know. Though occasionally I do play hard to get," he seemed to remark almost to thin air but the gangly shape in the stable shadows startled and hesitantly scurried out from cover.

The boy stared wide-eyed at the elf, something clutched in his left hand tight against his thin, grey coat. He stiffened under the amused, silver eyes but straightened his posture and walked purposefully forward though his voice faltered as he stopped within three paces.

"I—I was told to give this to the elf at the Goat. I guess that's you," he explained, thrusting a scrappy bit of parchment at Haldir who took it slowly.

Before he could even ask who it was from, the boy bolted away, through the stables and out of sight as though the hounds of Angmar were on his heels.

Lintedal looked at him with inscrutable eyes as he leaned his shoulders on a fence post and unfolded the parchment. He read it through once and then again, his lips growing thinner and whiter with every letter.

Aragorn poked his head out the inn's back door. "There was a messenger looking for you. I sent him out here."

"Did he say where he was from?" Haldir asked, the parchment concealed tight in his fist.

Aragorn shook his head. "Did he find you?"

Haldir turned his back as though to pat Lintedal goodnight and surreptitiously slipped the note into his tunic. "I must have just missed him." Abruptly, he walked up the porch stairs and into the dimly lit entrance hall where a single, smoky lamp hung overhead.

Aragorn followed him in as he retrieved his cloak. "We'll leave tomorrow morning at dawn if you like. We don't have to stay…" he trailed off slowly. "I mean, you don't want to…?"

"Fine."

The ranger's eyes narrowed a little and Haldir felt a funny, little jolt in his stomach that made him avoid the man's eyes as he passed him, swinging his cloak around his shoulders and fastening it with his emerald brooch pin.

"I'm going for a walk."


	19. Steal Your Pain

The gaol was ugly even in the daylight. In the dark hours, it looked positively dreadful. As though he were entering the Barad-dûr itself, Haldir paused briefly once over the threshold, spinning about with hand on sword hilt when the thick wooden doors thudded unexpectedly shut behind him, barring his only exit. Knowing there was no going back now, he slowly relaxed his death grip on his weapon and examined the building with a little more than a twinge of apprehension.

The bastion was one of the only stone buildings in Merdon and for a good reason as it held its most dangerous occupants within its grey walls, slightly removed from the town and more respectable society. It looked more like a fort than a prison with tall, grey walls, and crenellations with arrow slits along the outsides. In case of attack, the building could also be used as a place of safety. Somehow the grim structure did not make Haldir feel any safer.

Ahead of him stretched a bare, weedy courtyard of ancient flagstones and arched doorways that opened both east and west and were carved with more skill than the small population of Merdon could claim. Two wardens exited from the western doorway as he crossed the open space, feeling oddly exposed.

One of them, an older man with a pockmarked face and sheer cheekbones like the crags of a cliff, said nothing and sidestepped cautiously away from him when the elf pushed back his hood. Haldir was probably the only elf he'd ever seen aside from the one now in his custody. The younger one on the old man's other side goggled with unabashed curiosity and politely stretched out a hand to shake the elf's. It was he who took Haldir to the cells when the elven captain told him what he wanted.

"I hope he talks a bit to you," the younger man said as they left the courtyard behind and unlocked the eastern door that extended into a long corridor of mostly unoccupied cells. "He wouldn't to me. He hasn't said a word since he got here except at the trial. Wish I could have seen that. Grinj—who you met out there—got to be in the room. He said it was so thick in there you could have stirred the air with a spoon. The elf was right calm when he talked about murdering all them people. Grinj said he nearly lost his breakfast—and that man could swallow nails."

He craned his neck over his shoulder curiously at the silently following elf. "You say about as much as him. Are all Elves like that?"

"Only those who prefer silence to useless chatter." Haldir glanced around. The stone was newer in this corridor and the cells were three-walled with a barred grille taking up the fourth.

The irrepressible guard didn't take the hint but noticed him looking. He smiled. "Interested? Rumor says Gondorians built this place close to the river Isen so they'd have a keep on either side of the Anduin. It burned down though when the filthy, murdering Wildmen attacked it," he said but the acerbity bled out of his voice fairly quickly as he looked around and patted the rough stones fondly. "We managed to scrape it up a bit over the old foundations, kept the courtyard though and a couple other places underground."

He continued on briskly, unlocking another door at the far end of the hall. "Careful, slick here." A hand stretched out to balance himself as they descended down spiraling, close set stairs that twisted so narrowly Haldir, accustomed as he was to the Galadhrim flets and their endless ladders, actually felt a little dizzy.

"Usually, it's just drunks and stuff from the bar that get holed up for a night," the guard kept up a steady stream of commentary, his voice echoing slightly off the walls. "Maybe a chicken thief or two in the spring—they've got some great stories—but this one's really turned people's heads. I 'spect a bunch'll turn up for the execution…"

A rangy, saturnine man dressed in a high-collared wool coat with brass buttons stood with arms folded at the beginning of a corridor as they finally reached the landing. An only torch flickered above his head. He was round-shouldered and sallow-faced as though he spent much too much time out of the sun. In his belt, he carried a long, black baton and for reasons best known to himself a wide knife. He pushed off the wall as young guard greeted him enthusiastically.

"Visitor to see the condemned, Aylward…sir," the younger guard said, belatedly tugging his forelock in a salute. Haldir guessed he must be the chief warden, the best man to guard the most dangerous prisoner.

The older man gave the tall visitor a wary once-over and plucked the torch from its bracket. "Follow me."

The younger guard fell in at Haldir's back as they followed the warden's light down the tunnel which was black as pitch but for the gleaming dampness reflected off the walls. The whole place had an air of neglect about it as though no one had been down here in years. Behind him, the younger guard fiddled with his keys which clinked loudly in the stillness.

"There's supposed to be all kinds of hidden passages down here," he whispered after a moment to break the unnerving quiet. "Places that haven't ever seen daylight, full of wide lakes and goodness knows what else."

The warden stopped outside a heavy door and the guard abruptly stopped talking. "He's through here but I'm not taking a whole party back there. Petrin, get back to your post. Go on."

The young guard, Petrin, looked slightly disappointed as though he'd been hoping to stay and listen but he tugged his forelock to his superior again, gave the elf a swift, admiring grin and sprinted back up the stairs.

The warden shook his head after him disapprovingly. "He's been sneaking down here when he thinks I don't know, and he's going to get himself in more trouble than he can handle if he keeps it up. Prisoners are here for punishment not as a curiosity for boys. Still, I guess, with nothing else to entertain him…" He sighed waspishly and unlocked another, even thicker door to an even more lightless passage and stopped a little ways down. "We only keep those needing the most security down here."

He pulled a dusty lantern off a rickety, worm-eaten shelf and lit it so the walls flashed and glittered with oily damp. In the stronger light glowing under his jaw, the warden examined his visitor, his eyes lingering on the elf's long, golden hair and gently tipped ears. "Thought you looked a bit too familiar. Friend of his are you?" He jerked his head towards the cell.

Purposefully ignoring the man's stare, Haldir peered through the small, square grille at the top of the door but saw only darkness beyond. "No."

The warden shrugged and handed him the lantern. "All right. You can use this if you like. But leave it close to the door. If I see the light go out, I'll come running," the lock clicked back as the catch slid out. "Anything else you need?"

"Just privacy."

"I'll stand down the corridor. You won't have long though. Strictly speaking visitors aren't allowed down here since this place isn't exactly safe. Some of the lower passages are flooded or caved in but since it's a condemned's visit..." He hesitated a moment then his blue eyes narrowed a bit. "You do know what he's done, right?"

"Yes. I am well aware," Haldir said, already stepping forward.

The warden blocked his path with his smoothly-drawn truncheon. "Sorry," he added grudgingly when the elf looked annoyed. He tapped the elf's saber hilt with the wood. "No weapons or anything he can get his hands on. He nearly beheaded one of my guards when he woke up while we were putting the chains on him. Had a knife concealed in his sleeve."

Haldir pulled his saber off his belt and, ignoring the outstretched hand, set it on the floor beside the cell.

The warden nodded tightly and then guessed that it was trepidation that kept the elf hesitating. "Don't worry. We took all his weapons. He's perfectly safe, all chained up. He can't reach you if you stay close to the wall."

"And yet, you are staying on the other side of the door," Haldir couldn't help noticing.

"Yep."

The door's hinges whispered open; someone had bothered to oil them. The walls were thick stone, unadorned and spotted with damp and mold in the corners. He placed the lantern just shy of the threshold as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the general lightlessness. He couldn't imagine being kept in this nightmarish place. There wasn't a single window or light of any kind other than the feeble one he had brought with him. To be cut off from the stars and sound of birds and trees surpassed any amount of physical torture for an elf. They could not live without the sweet sounds of the earth though being imprisoned from them and yet still able to hear their free song might have been cruel comfort.

The cell itself was more of an oubliette, circular and long lengthwise though only eight paces at most in diameter. Not even a plank could be attached to the circular wall for a bed. The worst criminals, it seemed, did not deserve even that small, worthless comfort. The lantern let out a sputtering hiss as oil dripped down the wick and nearly quenched the little bright patch of stone it illuminated. A wooden tray and what looked like the crusty, congealed remnants of a bowl of gruel lay abandoned near the door. A disconcerting reddish-copper stain crawled thinly up another. Haldir waited for the occupant to break the silence first, knowing his presence had been marked.

Fedorian had chosen his spot well. Liquid shadow enfolded him completely on his side of the chamber. But Haldir could hear movement where the light couldn't reach, a shifting and clink of chains.

"I had begun to think you would not come." The voice was almost unrecognizable, a hard, filing rasp as though the elf hadn't used it in days.

"I was not sure I would," Haldir said.

"I see you've met our shining example of discipline, Warden Aylward," Fedorian said. A chain scraped the floor as though he had jerked his head in the direction of the door. "He doesn't believe in trials for…what was it he called me? 'A blood hungry lowlife not fit to tarnish the light of day' I believe were his exact words. Are you going to ask me for forgiveness before they have me on the gibbet?" he inquired suddenly, a rueful chuckle edging his tone.

"I have nothing to ask forgiveness for," Haldir said a trifle coldly and fished the stained parchment out of his tunic pocket. "You asked for me."

"Do you think I should ask for forgiveness?"

"What do you want?"

The barest glint of flame yellowed half of his jaw and illuminated his glittering eyes as Fedorian leaned forward into the light. "The little ranger survived didn't he? I doubt very much that you would have come if he were dead."

"He is healing," Haldir admitted grudgingly. He didn't want to talk about Aragorn in Fedorian's presence if he could help it.

"Your softness for this ranger is almost sickening," he remarked offhandedly. Then his eyes narrowed shrewdly as Haldir shifted his weight again. "You are favoring your left side. Why?"

Haldir sighed, his gaze darting around the walls again as he replied casually, "Broken rib."

"Ah," The eyes fixed unblinkingly on him widened in understanding. "I see. My snare?"

A terse nod.

His mentor tsked remonstratively and reclined back into darkness. "You should know better by now how to avoid a snare, Haldir."

"That is not what I came here for, Fedorian. What do you want?" the marchwarden repeated, more sharply. He suspected Fedorian simply wanted someone to talk to, when it seemed his life would extinguish in the next few hours, even he, murderer, torturer, deceiver though he was, did not relish being alone. But Fedorian was also proud. He worked best alone. He always had. Why now would he desire company?

"You have not set forth a single step since you crossed the threshold. I am chained not you," Fedorian observed from his place. "Do you fear me, Haldir?"

"No." Fear was definitely not an emotion he could say he felt right now. Nudging the lantern several inches from the door, he stepped deeper into the room, feeling a chilling draft open up behind his back as he moved away from the strong, protective comfort of the wall.

Light pooled and spread now over the circular room. Even its dimmest fingers searched out the draggled form of Fedorian sitting against the opposite wall.

He was a wreck.

One leg crooked lazily up, the other stretched straight out in front of him. His hands lay in his lap, both connected to the walls by short chains. Someone had slapped a rude bandage, probably applied while he was still unconscious, over the arrow hole in his shoulder. His hair twisted over his chest, unkempt and tangled from the warrior ties. The long week of imprisonment had hollowed Fedorian's cheeks and eye sockets even more until they were dark planes in his once-handsome features. He had been refusing his meals, out of spite, knowing he wouldn't die before the appointed public date.

But a dark fire still flared behind those eyes as he raised his head a few inches to look up at his former pupil.

"Must I crane my neck along with all other discomforts?"

Haldir unfastened his cloak and tossed it over the filthy floor so he could sit.

Fedorian caught his eyes in the dim light. The ruined eye coated in scar tissue looked so much more disturbing up close, its blank, cloudy blueness opening into a soul just as ravaged and empty. But there was a grey fleck, a single flicker of life still in them that kept spirit and body together, just long enough to finish the set task.

"You have no more love of men than you ever did," he said into the stillness of Haldir's stony silence. "I know you better than that. You do not love them anymore than I do."

"No. I don't." No glib remark or sarcastic put-off. Not with him. Not now.

"Then why this one?"

"He is the foster-son of Lord Elrond, husband of Lady Celebrían, daughter of the Lord and Lady I swore to serve. That places him under my protection by right of blood." It was the simplest explanation Fedorian would understand, no longer having any concept of friendship.

"You always did do your duty," Fedorian said without a sneer for once. "Even if you found it distasteful. You spoke with him then didn't you? Straightened out my lies?"

Haldir remained silent.

Fedorian seemed to read his mind. "You didn't. Interesting."

Still, Haldir retained his silence.

"What makes you think he would believe me in the first place?"

This time Haldir's eyes flickered with cold respect. "You have no need of lies because you have that singular talent of telling the truth in the darkest, starkest way you know how. You always did it to Rúmil and Orophin and I."

"Yes," Fedorian said vaguely. He actually laughed. But it was a hollow sound and he seemed still very much present as though he couldn't quite picture anymore whatever memory Haldir had evoked. "We were friends once, Haldir, you used to confide in me."

"I believe it was you who said it had been long since we were friends," Haldir reminded him, a little icily. But it was true enough. They had been friends, close ones in the manner of soldiers with the elder looking after and guiding the younger. Years had passed but that didn't mean Haldir still didn't feel the ache as though it were yesterday: the gaping loss of his mentor and confidant. It hurt still more to see him like this, a warrior of the Galadhrim, snapped in chains like a common criminal, sentenced to an ignoble death where brigands would fight over his corpse afterward. The thought made his insides burn.

"I was angry." Fedorian said slowly. "I do not take betrayal well."

"I did not betray you."

"You betrayed me the moment you decided you valued a human's life more than loyalty to one you owe everything to!" his voice rose shrilly. "I stood by you in everything and that wasn't worth a damn to—!"

"Is that what you want from me? An apology?" Haldir's eyes narrowed in disbelief. A sharp rap on the other side of the door froze both of their voices as they glanced towards it simultaneously.

"Everything all right?" Aylward's voice called.

"Yes." Haldir shot a look at Fedorian who merely sneered soundlessly at the door.

"Even Arenath did not fall so far," the dark Galadhel said in a much lower voice. No footsteps had sounded to indicate Aylward had moved away from the grille.

The subject of Arenath was still tender and Haldir's eyes darkened. "He did his duty by you and he died for it."

"He died with more honor than he could have hoped," Fedorian snapped back. "If I could do what I did over again…"

"You would do the same thing."

Fedorian said nothing but his eyes roamed over his subordinate's face again as though searching for cracks in the armor.

Haldir stared at the floor. He tried to think of all the things Fedorian had done to be in here, to deserve this: kidnapping Brenn, torturing Aragorn, killing Yyrin, Ral and countless others. Throwing himself into an unending tide of vengeful bloodlust. But hadn't he, the marchwarden of Lórien, once done the same? If things had turned out differently, it might have been he in those chains, in this cell. Or dead.

"I cannot help you anymore," he said as he rose and peered out of the grille. Turning back to his friend, he knelt, taking his time gathering up his cloak, folding it over his arm and meticulously brushing the dust off it.

Fedorian gave him a long, slow look as Aylward unlocked the door.

"What kinda time you call this?"

The inn had been dark and completely silent when Haldir slipped in through the side door from the stables. The hall smelled faintly of snuffed candles. Even the servants after forcefully ejecting the last of the all-nighters had finally thrown ashes over the coals and sought their beds. Haldir did not allow his surprise to show as he faced the door on his left from which the accusatory voice had issued.

Carlóme's bleary, red-eyed face peered out at him from her bedroom door. It seemed she had been one of those last all-nighters for she still wore her boots and trousers under a long, threadbare nightgown.

"I could ask you the same. Your celebration of bloodshed finally tire you or did you simply run out of coin?"

"Now, don't be like that." she squinted up at him. "You've been gone awhile. Strider went to bed hours ago."

"Good. He could use it." Somehow he doubted Aragorn had been content with his "going for a walk" excuse and was probably waiting up right now to grill him on his absence.

"Don't tell me you didn't have a little celebration of your own all those years ago when you killed my people." Carlóme said unexpectedly, finally processing his earlier comment and stung by it.

Haldir stared at her for a long, measuring moment. "They were not your people."

"Being humans makes 'em my people. And that's not an answer."

"What answer could I possibly make that would matter to you?" he asked dismissively as he passed her, heading for the stairs. Over and over and over she had pressed and jeered and scorned and prodded for details of his exploits he had absolutely no desire to recount to her for her vicarious gratification. The people of her country had long been enemies of the Gondorians. If there were a few less of them to plague the people of the Sunlands why should she care?

She followed him, grasping the banister. "The second I laid eyes on you I felt something."

"See Zaren for those needs, not me," he retorted, rising another step.

"Shut up and listen a minute," she said, grasping the hem of his cloak slung over one arm and giving it a sharp tug. "Since Saeryn's got a big mouth, I don't need to explain again—you know I've seen the bad side of men, what 'my people' do to each other—and yours. You know too. I saw you sitting in that room," she jerked her head towards the common room. "Saw that look on your face in front of the fire the first night you and Strider were here. You knew how to get through the dark hours, knew what a treasure a good bottle of brandy is for sleep, I saw it. Like there's something in you that hurt too. I could see it then—still see it now."

He blinked at her. He had never seen her in such a mood. For someone he assumed was not often given to self-reflection, it was rather disconcerting to hear her talking this way. But she was still to surprise him.

"You saved Brenn, you saved Strider, you helped us capture that damned rogue. He's going to die. And I'll tell you right now, I'm not sorry for it. Not sorry for it," she repeated. "But that you feel bad… that's not right either."

She took several paces closer until she stood on the step beneath his looking up into his face. He could smell the tang of booze on her breath, and not only the rheumy glaze in her eyes but also the sincerity. "We all do things we regret. Some regrets are bigger than others. You should talk to your ranger. Friends are all that hold us together after what we've been through. Sometimes they're all you've got."

"You've had far too much to drink if you're trying to heal my ghosts," he said with a certain amount of dark irony as he brusquely pulled his cloak out of her loosened grasp and continued on up the stairs, feeling her eyes follow him until he reached the dark landing.

The upstairs was just as shadowy and silent as the first floor though without the smell of candles. His side was starting to throb again but he managed to make it to his own door with most of his breath. He paused just shy of entering it as he saw a dim glow flickering from underneath Aragorn's room.

Just as he'd thought, the ranger had apparently been waiting up for him but had lost the battle against sleep. Mouth slightly open, the young ranger sat slumped in an armchair by the fire, his head nestled in the crook of the chair back and wing, his legs outstretched towards the still-warm hearth. The comforter pulled from his bed had slipped down around his waist, exposing his loose, red sleeping shirt and the splinted fingers lying in his lap. He had left the lantern on beside him.

Haldir took pity on the man and silently pushed the door a little wider. It wouldn't do for him to sleep in a chair until morning. Bending over the sinking light, he fiddled with a knob on the side, snapping the wick up increasingly brighter. Aragorn cringed away from it with a deep inhale and blinked himself awake. He squinted up at his friend, tugging the quilt back up around his shoulders as the cold in the room made itself known to his previously sleep-warm body.

"I wasn't sleeping," the ranger protested against an unspoken accusation, rubbing the grit out of his eyes.

"Resting your eyes, I'm sure," the elf said as he walked through the shared door that divided his room from Estel's.

"What's the time?"

"Time for all good, little rangers to be in their own beds. Not their chairs."

The realization of why he had been waiting up for his friend came to the ranger with a rush and he suddenly leapt up, flinging the quilt on his bed, and padding into the other room.

Haldir looked around at him guardedly as he set his swordbelt on the small chest of drawers. His boots already lay discarded next to the bed. When Aragorn didn't say anything, he resumed his nightly ritual and disentangled his braids, scowling at his reflection in the mirror while he watched the man over his shoulder.

"I thought you were going to be back hours ago. Where did you go?" It wasn't accusatory or even really inquiring. But it was worried and even as full as his mind was at the moment, Haldir recognized it.

"I…down the road," he invented lamely, glad his back was to the ranger.

Aragorn perched on the side of the moth-eaten bed near the door, watching his friend watching him. He didn't say anything. He just waited until the silence echoed in the room and contracted so tightly Haldir felt he would almost be squeezed in half if he didn't break it. He gave up on his hair and flung the comb down on the dresser with a satisfying clatter.

"He wanted to see me."

Aragorn didn't have to ask who 'he' was. "Why?"

"I told you the messenger didn't find me. I lied…He'd written to me and asked me to come. So I did."

The ranger nodded slowly. He didn't ask why Haldir had granted his torturer's last request or anything of the sort. Instead, he merely said, "You could have told me."

Haldir saw that he'd hurt Estel and ran his fingers over the knobby bedpost guiltily. "It's not that I didn't trust you. It was…"

Aragorn looked patiently up at him with wide eyes. Haldir dropped his own to the threadworm carpet.

"I wanted to go alone."

"So Carlóme doesn't know either."

"I didn't tell you but you think I might have told her?" Aragorn held his hands up in surrender as the elf's former self-assured acidity reasserted itself. Haldir sighed. "She would have told me my judgement was clouded. Or more likely mutter something about how not sorry she is that he's dying though she's sorry I am affected by it."

Aragorn raised an eyebrow at this but Haldir shook his head dismissively, wordlessly imploring the ranger not to ask. Silence fell again but the atmosphere in the room had changed subtly, grew heavier, denser. Aragorn watched his friend pace purposelessly across the room to lean against the window ledge.

"You're troubled."

Haldir laughed bitterly. "My captain is dying tomorrow. I think that's worth a little trouble, isn't it?"

"It's more than that." Aragorn joined him at the window but didn't look outside. Instead, he rested his elbows on the sill and stared at the shaded profile of his friend.

"It could have been me."

A small, puzzled frown creased Aragorn's brow at the barely audible whisper. "I don't understand. What could have been you?"

Haldir's knuckles whitened on the windowsill and he still didn't meet the man's compassionate gaze. "If things had turned out differently, I might have been the one in chains now. The one waiting for his death, spending his last night in a dark cell. It is hard for you to believe, Estel, but I…I hated men with as much passion as Fedorian."

Aragorn didn't really know what to say to that so he improvised, "I know, I will never know everything that happened to you and if you don't want to you don't need to talk about it. But I also think you would feel better if you did."

"You and I have started this conversation before."

"And this time we might actually finish it," the young man said calmly in a tone older than his years. "You did not give in to your hatred like he did, Haldir."

"I did for awhile."

"But you knew it was wrong and that it would destroy you if you let it take over you," Aragorn said remembering what Arenath had told him. "You got out of it."

"Belated guilt does not excuse what I did."

Aragorn couldn't believe how relentless Haldir was being in blaming himself for something that he could not have controlled. "What would you have me do? Condemn you? Spurn you for something that happened so long ago my great-great-grandfather was not alive to bear witness to it?"

"Yes," Haldir insisted. His silver eyes snapped up intensely into the ranger's face. "I killed them, Estel. Men as young as—younger than—you. I did it without mercy. Without remorse." He released the man from his eyes as though he expected, even wanted, Aragorn to leap away from him.

Aragorn didn't budge. "All right."

"That does not bother you?"

"It—" The man fiddled uncomfortably with a splinter hanging off the shutters. "No. The simplest, shortest answer is no, it does not."

"And the longer, more complicated answer?"

"I know you," the ranger put simply.

Haldir scoffed. "Two months, Estel. That is a short span even by your standards."

"I meant," the man continued patiently. "I have seen you fight and I know how careful you are to kill only when you have to and if you have to, to make it as quick as possible." When Haldir showed no signs of responding to this, he broke off, raked a hand through his hair with a long sigh and tried again. "Maybe…I understand better than most why you did what you did. My own brothers, they did very much the same when—"

"—when Lady Celebrían was taken," Haldir finished quietly for him; he remembered all too well the frightening grief and rage of Elladan and Elrohir that awful year when they steeped themselves dangerously in blood to avenge their mother's pain.

"Even after all these years, they still ride after the orcs," Aragorn said. This time it was his eyes that dropped to his hands now still on the windowsill. He was straying into perilously personal territory indeed.

"This is different."

"How?"

"They slay the orcs in open battle not in their sleep, not on their knees…not their friends," Haldir rushed out as though the very admittance might burn him up and consume him before he had the chance to finish. "He looked like you, you know. Tergon.

I have been asking myself more than once this trip whether I am somehow trying to make it right—'make amends' Arenath accused me—or if I am protecting you for your own sake." He shrugged distractedly out of his tunic and rubbed the itching bandages underneath.

"I worry for you, you know." In any other situation, with any other person, he would never have made such an admission but he couldn't help saying anything less than the truth under Aragorn's eyes. "Worry that it…it could happen again…"

Aragorn was shocked. He had had no idea Haldir felt this way. He had largely resented the elf's overprotectiveness during this trip, how much he insisted the ranger needed looking after. It made better sense now. "Well, I'm still alive aren't I? Nothing's happened to me…well, not much…" he added when the elf leveled a disbelieving glare at him. The ranger sighed. "The circumstances were different then. You lost people you loved, Haldir, that would hurt and anger anyone. What happened to Tergon…was an accident."

Haldir stared at him, the first, frightening flicker of desperation in his eyes. "How are you so sure?"

Aragorn stared into the elf's eyes, saw the years-deep pain behind them and felt his heart squeeze tightly in his chest. "Because I know you," he repeated sternly, willing the elf to believe him. "And the Haldir I know would never hurt a friend on purpose; he would never let himself slip like that because he has seen what it would do. I'll give you a perfect example. You had the chance to kill Branock that day by the stream (and I think he would have deserved it if you had). But you didn't. You didn't. Yet you continue to punish yourself needlessly for things that happened so long ago and that you have atoned for a hundred times over. You put yourself in danger for the sake of others and you never think of the cost to yourself before doing so."

Haldir listened in silence which Aragorn took as a sign to continue.

"You are just…" his voice dropped abruptly and he bit his lip, for the first time looking a bit unsure of himself.

"'Just' what?"

"I think…" Aragorn said softly, not sure if it was his place to say this but deciding to finish anyway. "I think you are unhappy. You have not been happy with yourself…" he trailed off helplessly.

Truth be told—though Aragorn would never dare say this aloud—as long he'd known him, he didn't think Haldir had ever been really happy. There were moments: bright, beautiful moments when a flicker of joy would surface, a flash of ready humor but it was always overcast by a darker, more somber mood that the ranger felt in his heart the elf did not deserve—whether it was from the condemnation of others' or the elf's own thoughts.

Haldir remained perfectly still after this pronouncement. In fact, for a moment, Aragorn feared the elf hadn't heard him and he would have to repeat that horrible sentence. But then the marchwarden sighed, very heavily and glanced over at the man.

"I've been called worse."

Aragorn blinked, dumbfounded, thinking this an odd moment for the elf's particular brand of dry humor to surface but he recovered quickly. "Even so, I am very lucky to count you as a friend and I would rather no one else fight by my side." Without hesitation or even a tremor in his fingers, he squeezed the elf's shoulder firmly with his unbroken hand, a soft smile lighting his face.

"Who else would save an idiot ranger—who shall remain unnamed—after he stumbled through the wild in the middle of a fog?"

"You fell off a cliff," the elf reminded him.

"For the record, I was pushed," the man defended himself mock-indignantly, glad to see a smile creep however slowly back over the elf's face. But he became serious again as he told his elven friend. "You could have left me there. But you didn't. That is not the mark of a remorseless killer."

"No, that is the mark of an idiot who was then saddled with said idiot ranger."

"I'd say we match up well then," Aragorn said proudly.

Finally, a chuckle. Haldir planted his hands akimbo and shook his head wonderingly at the young man. "You are without doubt the strangest person I've ever met."

Aragorn flopped backwards onto the bed. "And now I think the tiredest." But he smiled at the ceiling. It felt unspeakably good to hear his friend laugh again. He would have to keep doing that and Aragorn would be there, to keep him happy, keep him laughing if nothing else. A sharp tug on the covers made him look up and reluctantly roll his lethargic body off the bed.

Whisking the blankets off, Haldir folded himself in them and sank into a chair near the window.

Aragorn cocked his head in confusion. "Are you going to sleep?"

"If you stop chattering at me," the elf said, peering down at the deserted cobbles below as he propped his long legs up on a cushioned footstool. "Throw me a pillow will you?"

"Isn't it a little more comfortable to use the bed—that is why we have two rooms, otherwise you could have slept in the armchair in mine."

"You snore."

"I do not," Aragorn protested, throwing the pillow a little harder than intended.

Haldir caught it with a faint grimace and admitted. "I can't sleep comfortably lying down at the moment." His movement had dislodged the blankets, revealing the neatly wrapped bandages around his ribs.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Haldir, I completely forgot." Aragorn mentally kicked himself. Of course, broken ribs were bad especially because there was no comfortable way you could sit, stand or lie without pressure on something that hurt. "Do you need anything for it?"

"Just quiet." A beat passed.

"What are you doing now?" the elf asked in a mockingly irritated voice as the man padded back into his room and returned a few seconds later carrying his quilt and an armful of pillows which he dumped on the elf's vacated bed.

"Well," the man said, shrugging. "If you aren't going to sleep in your bed, I will."

"Keeping me company?" the elf shot him an exasperated look he usually reserved for over-persistent brothers.

"Softer mattress."

Haldir chuckled again and relaxed against the cushioned chair back as he listened to the man adjusting pillows and bedsheets. The room darkened as he reached over and turned down the lantern. The ache in his side had become much more bearable and though he had not put all of his unhappiness behind him, it was better just being with light-hearted Estel who was right now nothing more than a shapeless dark lump sprawled on the bed. If this was "softness" as Fedorian had so insultingly put it, then he would take it and gladly. Haldir let his mind begin to drift as he looked back out the window at the stars glittering above. Fedorian wouldn't be able to see them…

"It will be good to be home," Aragorn murmured, his voice muffled slightly by the mound of down-filled pillows around his head.

"Yes."

"I can take you hunting up on the pine ridge. There are great, big deer herds up there in the summer."

Haldir made a vague noise to show he was still listening—albeit inattentively.

"Oh, and there's that little—"

The elf captain sighed loudly to cut him off. "Estel, go to sleep, mellon nin. Humans are grouchy in the morning if they don't enough sleep. And so am I," he added darkly.

"All right! I know. I was just—"

Wondering if the man had actually pulled off falling asleep in the middle of a sentence, Haldir rolled over onto his uninjured side and propped himself up on one elbow to peer over at the bed.

Aragorn was sitting up in his mess of blankets and pillows. His face, upturned towards the elf's, was bathed in moonlight slanting in from the window a curious look of wonderment and growing delight on his bruised, tired face.

Haldir lifted a trim eyebrow. "What?"

"That was the first time you have ever called me "mellon nin.""

"Is that all?" the marchwarden snorted and lay back down. "What? Do you want a prize for it? I don't have any more knives to give away. For the last time, go to sleep!"

Aragorn laughed softly and Haldir listened to him rustle around for a bit before finding a comfortable position. He was glad the man couldn't see him smile—he would never have any peace.

A scarce thirty seconds of silence passed. "You know I never really thought—"

"You see? This is exactly why I wouldn't sleep in your room."

Warden Aylward whistled softly to himself as he paced the damp corridor attempting to keep awake as the cold hours before dawn crawled by. At least by this time tomorrow, he wouldn't have anything to guard. Then he could get a decent night's sleep. Rubbing his eyes against the painful glare, he set the lamp down by his feet and rattled his polished truncheon against the metal grating at the top of the door.

"Bet you're not getting any sleep in there are you?" he called through the wood. "A beast like you doesn't deserve sleep. Tomorrow though, tomorrow you'll get a good one." The guard chuckled knowingly. "A good night's rest."

His laughter died away quickly and silence swooped in to take its place. The man shivered and pulled his cloak closer about his thin body. He almost wished he'd taken Petrin's offer of switching duties tonight. Why did it always have to be so damn cold down here? He kept talking more to amuse himself then for the benefit of an actual conversation. The prisoner hadn't said a word since they'd subdued him a couple of hours ago. He'd been a little too agitated for his own good after his one visitor left and taunted the guards. In fact, maybe they'd been a bit overzealous. He might still be unconscious.

"Didn't hit you that hard, did I? Tough old torturer like you. You couldn't fight much against real men who aren't tied up."

He jolted away from the door, the hair rising straight up on the back of his neck when a smooth, completely awake-sounding voice answered him in coherent Westron.

"Oh, I don't know about that. You hit like a worm. And with about as much force."

Goaded by irritation and tiredness, the man was in no mood for more taunts and unlocked the double catch of the door quite against his usual, precautionary judgement, brandishing his baton. "You won't be able to walk to the gallows when I'm done with you."

Faster than lightning, something thin and glittering shot out of the darkness and pierced his left eye. He reared back more in surprise than from the force of the blow. Crimson droplets smeared his fingers and pattered onto his uniform with increasing urgency.

He screamed, the sound ringing terribly up the empty stairwell like an alarm as his hand flew up to his face. He didn't get the chance to yell again. A lithe shadow sprang out of the cell and smoothly relieved the knife from his belt. It slashed out once. Just once. The guard's body knocked over the lamp as it crumpled. The glass shattered, oil pooling and mixing with the rapidly growing crimson puddle rilling over the flagstones.

The knife gleamed red in the sputtering flames as the elf bent and wiped it on the dead man's tunic. He spread the pale already cooling fingers and delicately retrieved the brooch pin he had used to pick the locks on his chains.

"Good night, warden. Have a good night's rest."

Fedorian retrieved his weapons from the storage room and without pausing for another instant, he leapt up the stairs, leaving a trail of wet footprints in his wake.


	20. Final Confrontations

The pealing of bells woke him. The pounding, ringing alarum sounded like shards of glass splintering in another room. At first, Haldir thought it was a noise from his dreams as he drifted in the hazy world between sleeping and waking. Then he blinked; the haze vanished but the sound remained: tiny, insistent…frantic. He rubbed his face and the quilt slid off his shoulder and onto the floor.

"Huh? 's happening?" Aragorn slurred drowsily as the clacking of the shutters jolted him awake.

Haldir leaned out the window, watching vague shapes hurry past on the dark street below, boots thudding on the cobbles. The inn door beneath them slammed shut.

"Bells." He closed the shutters, pulled open a low drawer and retrieved a tunic and his satchel. He picked up his saber from the night table as voices surged up from below. Aragorn sat up and passed a hand confusedly through his hair as his friend disappeared momentarily into the other room and came back, tossing a tunic into the still heavy-eyed ranger's lap.

"Get dressed."

Carlóme and Zaren were deep in harried conversation when the two came rushing down the steps into the main hallway.

"What's happened?" Aragorn asked, seeming wide-awake though his dark hair was tousled still and his shirt wasn't fully buttoned.

"He's gone," explained Zaren who was wearing his cloak and out of breath. "Escaped. Just found out. Killed the guards—slit one's throat open wide with his own knife. You don't want to know what he did to the other one."

"How do you know this?" Aragorn asked, exchanging a meaning-laden glance with Haldir. The ranger was the only one who knew Haldir had been at the prison but a few hours ago. But the elf captain's face gave away nothing.

Zaren jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the porch. "One guard escaped, came running down here to spread the alarm like he was being chased by a pack of—"

Haldir strode past him out the door.

Sitting against one of the railings with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders was the young guard, Petrin who Haldir had met on his first and last visit to the prison. He looked white-faced and dull-eyed but he got right to his feet when the elf halted beside him.

"You…?"

"What happened?" The elf had no time to explain his presence here and time was of the essence.

The boy had already been made to repeat his story to Zaren, Carlóme, the innkeeper and eager hunters who had heard the bells and come to muster up a search so it was with a certain detachment that he spoke, "I offered Warden Aylward my watch tonight. He gets sick when he stays down there all night. He wouldn't take it so I went up to the guardroom. It was quiet. Grinj was pacing around though, said he had a bad feeling in his bones and kept going around the cells, checking and double-checking locks. He left after a bit and I wanted to wait up for him but… I—I think I must have fallen asleep," he admitted shame-facedly. "Next thing I knew somebody yelled."

He swallowed hard, his eyes lost in a nightmare. "I found Grinj on the stairs… he… he was still moving a bit… There was so much blood…He said—he said A—Aylward was dead and the elf gone. But he went quiet before I could ask where. Then I turned around. H—he was standing right behind me with a great, big knife. It was Aylward's and it was covered in blood," his voice cracked and he gripped his hair hard, silent tears coursing down his face.

Aragorn who had joined them shook his head and dropped on his haunches beside the boy, squeezing his shoulder though he knew it would do little to erase the horror he had witnessed. "But you escaped, you're safe now."

"I thought I was dead," Petrin choked out, shaking his head over and over again, gripping the hand on his shoulder as though it were a lifeline. "I knew I was dead. I couldn't even move. But he—he let me go. Just gave me a sort of nod and vanished back down the steps. Like it was nothing." He fell against the railing and slid down it until he was curled up at the bottom of the steps.

"Why down the steps?" Haldir wondered aloud, looking at Aragorn. "If he'd just come from there?"

Aragorn shrugged.

Carlóme and the rest of her band had strapped on weapons and cloaks over their nightclothes. The former answered him. "There's a small contingent who patrol the town after sunset. They were coming back when he broke out. The viper must have known he wouldn't get out through the front door."

"So what do we do now?" Aragorn asked, still rubbing Petrin's shoulder comfortingly.

"We go out and find the beast," snarled Carlóme, her eyes wild despite the pale nightgown cinched about her waist with a leather belt from which hung a long knife. "We go after him and end this."

Zaren nodded reluctantly. "Most of those hereabouts are rousing up the dogs. He couldn't have gotten far on foot. We can catch him maybe before he gets into the woods."

"I will go," Haldir offered, his grip tightening on his saber hilt.

"Me too."

"No, Estel. I want you to stay here," Haldir said and when Aragorn opened his mouth in outrage, he added, "He knows you. He will go after you first—"

"Exactly. We can lure him in."

"That didn't work so well last time did it?" the elf captain snapped. "No. I won't take that chance this time. You're staying here."

"You're not my commanding—"

"Hey!" Carlóme snapped, separating them. "We got enough on our plates without you two squabbling. If he wants to come, elf, let him come. The more eyes the better."

"I want to come with you too," Petrin said, throwing the blanket off his shoulders though he was still very white in the face.

"You'll get in the way, whelp. Stay here. You've done enough for one night," Carlóme said brusquely, already brushing past him. Despite her words, she could see he was at the end of his tether after what had happened tonight.

"I grew up there," he pressed. "I know nooks and corners you'd never think of looking in. Besides… Aylward was my foster-father. He took me in after my parents were killed by the Wildmen. I owe it to him to find his killer. I'm not brave," he admitted. "But I'll do what I can."

Carlóme was in no mood to argue; time was pressing. "Fine then. Grab a horse; we're leaving now. Let's go."

The prison loomed outside the town sheltered on a hill, away from more respectable citizenry. The stark, grey battlements stabbed like a knifepoint against a backdrop of woods as the company thundered up. To their surprise and disconcertion, the gates were already flung open and they rode in unimpeded.

The weedy courtyard was packed to the brim with soldiers and horses. Obviously, the contingent in the city had wasted no time in organizing search parties. A few of them pointed their way as Carlóme's band rushed through the gates, scattering soldiers left and right. A tall, brown-haired man who looked both irritated and stern, rode in front of them and held up a hand.

"Halt!"

Carlóme jerked on her reins but did not dismount. "We're in a hurry, boy. Get out of the way."

"You are not allowed to be here," he said in clipped, officious tones, his eyes sneering over the company. "We don't need any more meddlers coming in and botching things up."

"Two of your men have already been killed and your most dangerous prisoner escaped. How much more can it be botched up?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. We have the situation well under control." The man's lips whitened as he glared at the Haradrim woman but he did not move. "You are out-of-bounds. Return to your homes."

Carlóme rolled her eyes impatiently. "We're the ones who brought him to you in the first place. We've hunted him once already—"

"Get Varnic," snapped the mounted guard to one of his men who dropped his gear and raced for the stairs.

Neither the guard nor the company looked at each other, enduring the uncomfortable silence for several long minutes with Carlóme muttering oaths under her breath. The guard came running back with another on his heels, a harried-looking man in a long grey coat like the one Aylward had worn.

"I've already told your lot once to clear off. We are dealing with it," he growled, rushing down the stairs to intercept them.

"Varnic, it's all right. They're here to help," Petrin found his voice at last and met the man halfway.

The man sized the younger guard up, already shaking his head. "If he weren't already dead, Aylward would kill me for letting you go back in there after an escape. No, Petrin, sorry you got to stay here. We don't even know if he got out of the building yet. We're still searching."

"You do not know what you're dealing with. Your men would not know how to handle what they would find," Haldir said quietly, his face concealed by his hood though his cloak was unclasped.

The man named Varnic narrowed his eyes. Clearly, he didn't like being told how to do his job by a faceless man. "Oh? And you do? You have some bright idea you'd like to share with the rest of us? Who are you anyway?"

Haldir pushed back his hood and let his golden hair tumble down his back, his bright eyes and dimly glowing skin making the men surrounding them take a wary pace back. "One who knows all too well what has happened and what will happen if you don't let us through."

Varnic gaped. "You're—"

"Yeah, he's an elf," Carlóme said shortly. "Now do you mind getting out of our way, Varnic?" She maneuvered her horse curtly around him and dismounted at the stairs, the others following suit. He stared after them then abruptly shut his mouth and whirled on the soldiers behind him.

"Well, what are you all sitting around gawping for! Start searching! You and you," he pointed out two of his guards who had just starting to mount up. "Follow them."

The two guards fell back at the rear of the company as they passed soldiers carrying torches and heard voices echoing up and down passageways yelling out the all-clear.

Petrin and Haldir led the way, going down the same corridor and stairwell they had earlier that very night. The landing of the deep corridor where Fedorian had been held flashed past almost before Haldir realized it and he glanced questioningly over at Petrin as the young guard continued to follow the spiraling stairs down.

"Where are we going?"

"All the way down." He pointed down at the floor and Haldir, following his indication, saw with a grim lurch that a drop of darkest red glimmered on every other step.

It was dry-smelling and velvety black like obsidian made air as they finally stepped down onto the landing. Aragorn couldn't even see his hand flexed in front of his face; he couldn't decide whether it was the silence pressing down around his ears that made it creepy or if the place was simply oppressive, maybe a darker dungeon where worse prisoners suffered a punishment greater than death: eternal silence and darkness. Strange shapes contracted and expanded around him as his eyes played tricks on him. He rubbed them hard. The atmosphere down here seemed heavier than normal, thicker, harder to breathe.

One of the guards at the rear of the company spoke uncomfortably. "We already searched down here…There's nothing to find."

"You missed something," Petrin's voice said curtly.

"Ouch! That was my foot!" Somebody bumped into Aragorn and he grabbed their sleeve steadyingly.

"Quiet," Haldir's voice stilled their complaints and movements. "Petrin, get me something to light will you?"

A spark off to his left made Aragorn blink furiously against the glare as Haldir kindled light from a torch Petrin had retrieved from a wall bracket. Once the flame was lit, the place brightened considerably and Aragorn realized he held Brenn's sleeve. The youth grinned guiltily at him before slipping out of his grasp and disappearing into the back of the group. Aragorn wondered whether he was supposed to be there or not but he forgot all about telling Carlóme when the light revealed the room they were in.

Barrels staggered against the walls, all full of what looked like a dark, oily liquid. Dried, musty-smelling herbs hung overhead on racks and a large, creaky table commanded the center of the room. Two forms lay on it, draped in old blankets that covered everything but their boots.

Petrin carefully avoided these as he raised the torch a little higher to illuminate the corners of the room. "This is the storehouse and buttery for the guards and prisoners. Not much but commons really," he commented dully as he dragged burlap sacks of cornmeal and potatoes away from the walls. "I think…I think there's a hidden door around here…somewhere. But he sounded suddenly unsure of himself.

"I thought you said you knew this place! 'Nooks and corners you'd never think of looking in,'" Carlóme accused him angrily.

"Well…that's true," Petrin replied, edging away from the irate Haradrim woman who looked uncommonly fierce despite her short build. "But I haven't been allowed down here for years. Some of the tunnels might have collapsed. Aylward…he always used to lecture me on how my duty was guarding not snacking."

"Yes, well, we might as well start looking," Saeryn said pragmatically, searching the barrels and testing corners with her knuckles, listening for a hollow sound. "If a door is hidden down here…"

"I am no dwarf stonesmith," Haldir grumbled. The heavy darkness of the place was making him uncomfortable but he walked around the table nevertheless and ran his hands over the damp, rough-hewn stone, looking for anything: a catch, a crack that shouldn't be there…anything.

The minutes slipped by like drops of water and urgency screamed at them with every second that slipped past. Thinking hard and gazing around at the perfectly ordinary, solid walls, Aragorn sat on the lowest step, briefly smoothing his hand over the cracks and bumps in the wall. Something caught his eye. There was a patch of granite lighter than the others near the bottom of the last stair. It formed an uneven triangle shape because of the angle of the corner but it was not that that drew the ranger's attention. Dark, crimson smudges smeared the lighter rock as though something wet and dyed had touched it. He didn't know what made him do it but he laid his fingers over the four marks and pushed.

The patch of granite depressed with a snick.

Saeryn almost jumped out of her skin as a section of wall right in front of her quivered and with a harsh grate of stone on stone slid open three inches. Aragorn straightened up slowly as the others spun around.

"I think it's stuck," Zaren said, fitting his hand through the gap and pushing experimentally. Aragorn got up to help. With Zaren pushing and Aragorn tugging and jostling they wriggled the hidden panel further open, inch by painstaking inch. It glided more smoothly than they could have hoped across the hidden groves in floor and ceiling—as though it had been moved before. With a brief showering of dust on the heads of the searchers, the newly revealed "door" opened just large enough for a human to pass through.

A cold, funereal chill seeped out from the yawning blackness and those nearest shivered. Aragorn wiped his forehead on his sleeve and squinted into the dark.

"This must be it."

"How do we even know he came this way?" Carlóme asked, swiping a cobweb out of her hair that had blown in when the door opened.

Aragorn caught the silky strand and peeled another off her cloak. He looked up at other cobwebs only a few inches overhead, abandoned by their former occupants. They had left only the dried husks of old insects in the ripped and dangling webs. "Look at the webs: they're torn and brushed aside. Someone came this way."

The dark woman's hand suddenly lashed and snatched Brenn's collar. The boy had been lurking at the back of the group until curiosity bested him and he crept forward for a closer look. Carlóme shook him like an errant puppy. "What are you doing here? I told you to stay in your room."

He tugged free of her clasp and jutted his chin out defiantly. "You said the more eyes and ears the better. I want to help."

For a moment, Aragorn thought the Haradrim woman was going to explode. Then she folded her arms and smiled. It looked rather painful. "All right. You can help."

She whipped around towards the stairs where the two guards who had followed them stood "You and you. Go back, find Varnic and muster up a few men to follow us down here." Her hands tightened on Brenn's shoulders as she thrust him towards the stair. "Brenn, you go with them and make sure they don't hide under their beds. Why are you still standing here? Go!"

The guards looked too stunned and frightened of the gaping tunnel to question her. They seized Brenn by the shoulders and all but flew up the stairs.

"Now, that that's got them out from underfoot…" Carlóme took the torch from Zaren. "Shall we?"

Haldir briefly closed his eyes. "It had to be a dark tunnel."

Aragorn glanced at him sympathetically but he was already stooping after Carlóme whose bobbing torchlight led the way.

If the storeroom had been dark before this, it was nothing compared to the all-consuming blackness that engulfed them now. They could see only the few feet of craggy rock lit up by the torch. They hadn't gone far before the tunnel broadened and lengthened, open air expanding on either side of them until they could walk two abreast and upright as they felt their way tentatively forward.

Carlóme recoiled with a hastily stifled yelp, bumped into Zaren and dropped the torch which flared but thankfully did not go out. Haldir picked it up and held it out over whatever had surprised her as the woman furiously regained her footing.

Oily patches of greened water flickered in the shivering torchlight, little bubbles and dark spots pocking the surface. Algae had bloomed and withered, leaving its skeletal remains on the surface of a vast underground lake. The darkness was so thick and the lake so immense the further bank could not be seen.

"Where did all this come from?" he wondered aloud, his voice, soft as it was, glided out over the surface of the water which had not heard sound in who knew how many years.

"There must have been a stream that fed this once when it was a fortress and needed the trade," Aragorn said into the echoing stillness. He pointed towards a blocked drainage culvert a yard or two off to their right which was barely visible just under the lapping surface.

Haldir nodded. The Elvenking's palace in Mirkwood had a similar set-up. "It must have been dammed when this place burned down."

"So, is this it? We can't get through?" Carlóme said, already backing away from the water as though afraid something might ooze out of it and grab her ankle.

"Unless we swim."

Carlóme bit the inside of her cheek and glanced at the far wall.

Haldir looked at her, an unreadable expression on his half-shadowed face. "You cannot swim can you?"

The dark woman scowled at the water but didn't say anything.

"We don't have to swim," Aragorn had been investigating the walls around the surface of the lake in the faint light. "The banks here aren't wide but the water level's low enough—if we're careful we can edge around most of it."

Nobody spoke as they went in single file along the ribbed, broken banks that were littered with chunks of fallen rock, jetsam of the lake and long, trailing weed. Greenish black water glinted on one side and high, glistening walls close on the other. None of them said it but all were thinking the same thing. What would happen if they did come upon their quarry in this narrow place? How could they hope to fight? Each and every one of them strained for sounds up ahead: the brush of a footfall, the rustle of a cloak. But they heard nothing except their own labored breathing and the steady lap-lap of the water slapping the sides of the bank.

Curious, thudding sounds rumbled every now and then from up ahead like a giant wakening from slumber and made the company pause uneasily. It wasn't long before they realized what it was. A boulder cracked and fell from the ceiling. It exploded with an alarming splash into the lake, so close it showered half the company with icy droplets.

"This whole place is going to come down on us," Petrin said in a half-terrified whisper after Aragorn had yanked him out of the path of the rock that, had it struck its mark, would have split his skull wide open.

Trying not to show the fear those words evoked, Aragorn touched the damp stone and squinted up at the invisible ceiling. "I know where we are." The ranger's eyes widened in sudden realization. "We're under the stream."

The pressure exerted by the Isen tributary above them was very great and only increased as they went on. Gallons of water overhead sought cracks and joints in the rock and forced them apart, disrupting the ancient, carefully laid stones of the Gondorians. The ceiling dripped steadily onto their heads and the walls were slimed and phosphorescent with strange lichens long missing the sight of the sun.

"I think I see light ahead," Aragorn said after a quarter of an hour, raising the torch he now held a little way from his face so the flames wouldn't blind him. A tiny pinprick but growing larger and larger by the minute shone ahead as though guiding them. The air wasn't so thick and brackish smelling anymore and he thought he heard the sighs of trees.

In his eagerness, he rushed forward. A hump of rock protruding from the earthy floor tripped him and he nearly went sprawling. The torch extinguished with a sputtering hiss as it fell in the shallows and Aragorn stumbled, wind-milling his arms frantically so he might not follow it. Haldir seized him tight round the chest and tugged hard, the force of their reverse momentum hurling both of them into the wall. The soft sandstone cracked as the ranger's body thudded against it. Slightly dazed, Aragorn shook his head as a damp silt-like substance trickled onto it. Pulling gratefully away from Haldir, he sucked in a sharp breath as he looked up. The crack had widened since he'd first hit it, thrust apart by the terrible water pressure. With a grinding, splitting sound it crawled faster and faster up the length of the wall into darkness. They heard nothing for a terrible three seconds.

Then rocks came flying down upon their heads and spume shot out of the peppered lake as the company fled for their lives towards the trickle of daylight.

A fist-sized stone glanced off his shoulder blade and flung Aragorn sideways into Haldir's arms. The elf captain grabbed his upper arm and thrust him forward as the mouth of the tunnel trembled. Ducking under the collapsing arch, they hurled themselves into brisk night air and collapsed facedown on the grass. Choking dust rained down on their heads and Aragorn instinctively covered his head with his arms. When the rumbling and clattering behind them finally fell silent, they raised their heads a few inches.

The ranger blinked and shook his head vigorously, white powdering his hair and shoulders like snow. The tunnel's end had fallen in and sealed the exit. A solid wall of rock faced him where once had been an open path. Haldir too stared at the wall of rock in disbelief. They were alone. Carlóme and the others hadn't made it out.

"Is everybody all right?" Aragorn called close to the blocked tunnel, hoping beyond hope that the others would hear him—if they still could hear. The thought sent a hard lump dropping into his stomach until Carlóme's muffled voice answered him.

"Nobody's dead but we can't get through. Zaren got knocked out and half-buried under there."

Haldir got to his feet and swiped away blood starting to drip down his cheek from where a stone had grazed him. For half a minute he stared out into the trees, nightshaded and twisted beyond the tumbled rocks of the tunnel. They could not continue the hunt with most of their party buried and trapped. He sighed and started scooping away loose scree with Aragorn setting in close beside him.

"Start digging. We'll try to shift some of this rock."

After a long frustrating half-hour, the elf captain sighed, aggravated, and raked loose strands of hair free of his eyes. "It will take us days to dig through all of this. Whole sections of the roof came in. We need something to shift these larger boulders."

Aragorn bit his lip and glanced around as though hoping to find some magic solution to this new difficulty that they certainly didn't need. "I'll go look for a dead branch. We can use it as a lever." He headed off towards the trees.

"Estel."

The ranger glanced over his shoulder quizzically.

Haldir stood on the rocks a few yards above him. "Go carefully. He might still be out there."

"I'll be back in a few minutes," the young human gave him a lopsided smile.

The elf turned back to his work, muttering under his breath. "Why do I not believe you?"

Aragorn didn't hear him as he struck out into the woods. Somewhere above him an owl whispered by on noiseless wings, occupied on its nighttime hunt. The stars shining brightly overhead gave him just enough light to gain his bearings and seemed a blessing after the tunnel's pitch blackness. The trees parted a few yards further on and he found himself walking through a wide glade, the grass crunching like icicles under his boots. A curiously exposed feeling rippled down his spine and he increased his pace until he had crossed the open ground and reached the close safety of the trees again.

It didn't take him long to find one likely-looking branch hanging off an almost dead oak. He wrapped his hands around it, awkward because of his broken fingers and tried to wrench it free.

The trees were whispering and hissing above him. Aragorn straightened, listening to the rustling and creaking all around him. There was no wind. Uneasiness slid cold fingers up his tingling scalp. He had learned in a hard school that the sounds of the woodland often revealed more to attentive ears. The owl hooted restlessly; he could hear its wings flapping and cracking against branches. A chill coursed down his spine. The owl was afraid of something. The trees weren't whispering in wind, they were whispering in…

"Warning," the ranger looked over his shoulder, almost expecting to see the murderous dark elf bearing down on him. The glade behind him was empty. Somehow this did not reassure him and his heart took up a galloping pace in his chest as his hand flew to his sword hilt. He drew it with a faint hiss of steel, fervently wishing he hadn't gone quite so far away from the tunnel. He was in danger, every cell inside his body was screaming. The ground was thick with shadows; the trunks of the trees grew close together here, barely armslengths from one another. Barely armslengths…

The man's head shot up as the grey shadow dropped. A boot heel slammed into his jaw, knocking him heavily to the ground. Before the man could recover, hard, cold fingers seized his shoulders and thrust him roughly over onto his back. He lay there, stunned, tasting blood and barely able to breathe. Fedorian's deadly eyes bored into his.

Adrenaline surged through Aragorn's system and he arched his back, dislodging the hands but before he had raised his shoulders more than a few inches off the ground, a wracking, paralyzing pain erupted through his thigh. Fedorian's white, furious face obliterated in a spinning whirl of black specks as Aragorn collapsed onto his back, fighting the urge to pass out. Every muscle tensed until he forgot how to breathe as the knife ripped a jagged wound in his leg, through cloth, skin and bit deep into muscle.

Fedorian knew the exact spot to cause the most damage while keeping the man alive, wounding him just enough to leave him powerless. The human stilled beneath him knife, his leg muscle spasming with pain. A moan escaped gritted teeth but the elf waited patiently until the human stopped twitching then jerked his weapon free. Aragorn cried out.

A rush of wet warmth gushed over his leg and the human tried to staunch it awkwardly with his fingers. But a hand stronger than his thrust it away and pinned it against his side with a knee.

"You won't be running anymore, ranger." Fedorian gave the man another jab in the leg just for spite, wrenching another soft cry from the man's lips. "You have cost me a lot of unnecessary trouble I hope you know."

With a strength frightening in one so thin and ragged, Fedorian lifted him bodily and dropped him at the base of a yew tree on the edge of the glade, making sure to slam his head against the trunk for good measure.

"The—the others are coming," the ranger panted breathlessly over the pounding in his aching head as Fedorian bound his wrists, pulling on the cords to make sure they were tight. "Haldir is—"

"Haldir?" A wide smile stretched the elf's wasted features. "My dear boy, who do you think freed me?"

Without taking his eyes off the terrified human's, he reached into a pouch at his side and produced a green enameled brooch pin crafted in the shape of a mallorn leaf. Aragorn's stomach plummeted as he recognized it. Haldir's cloak had not been fastened tonight.

"No…" Aragorn shook his head furiously, immediately regretting it as yellow stars swirled in front of his eyes. "He wouldn't. You're lying."

Fedorian only smiled again, a taut leer more frightening than his previous rage. "No one is coming to help you, little one. Not this time. And most assuredly not Haldir."

The dark Galadhel waited for that sentiment to sink in before he spoke his final words to the human. "I do not have as much time for you as I would have liked. But this will do… it is enough just to watch your blood spill…" He brushed his thumb against the corner of Estel's broken lip, smearing blood along his chin. He brought the bloodied finger up to his lips and the pale, pointed tip of his tongue appeared.

Aragorn did not let the icy fear brimming in his veins show on his face. If he had to die he would die as befitted the nobility of his blood and his house, unflinching. His leg sent waves of splintering agony up his spine and every frenetic jump of his heart flushed more blood out of the wound until he felt dizzy and his chest grew tight. He couldn't move. He couldn't think. Everything around him seemed to have slowed down to a crawl.

Fedorian's non-blade hand crept up and cradled his chin. He forced the man's pale face to one side to expose the pulsing jugular vein in his throat, ready for his hungry knife.

Progress had been going very slowly back at the tunnel. Haldir's hands and shoulders were raw and sore. He straightened his aching back and peered over his shoulder at the dark trees, hoping to discern the rangy shape of his human friend walking out of the gloom, preferably with a large branch around his shoulders, or a damn good excuse on why he hadn't found one.

Where is he?

Something prickled in the back of his mind. Aragorn had said he would be a few minutes. It had been longer than that. Far longer. He had had more than enough time. It was winter; there was dead wood everywhere. Something was wrong. Instincts honed by years of constant vigilance and an awareness of ever-present danger sparked at the back of his mind. He knew better than to dismiss them.

"Keep digging," he called through to Carlóme and the others. "I'll return."

The human's passage was more difficult to follow than any other man's. Aragorn's own skill as a ranger and his upbringing among elves meant he stepped lighter than others. Still with the starlight overhead to aid him, Haldir kept determinedly on the trail. A glade opened ahead of him and he suddenly he heard—a soft, venomous voice, one he recognized with chilling certainty, and another, quieter one murmuring words he couldn't quite hear. A pained cry cut the air. He drew his saber.

Fedorian was rather enjoying taunting the human with his impending death. He could smell the fear rolling off him like beads of sweat though the man tried to meet his eyes with an impassive glare. He was not very good at pretending. But the dark elf also knew he could not linger here. He had already risked much by staying close to the escape tunnel. Many would be scouring the woods for him and he had no intention of waiting around for them. The knife glittered in his hand as he pressed it against the man's throat for the killing blow.

A gleaming saber twitched under his jaw, the razor edge burning slightly as it scraped the tender skin of his neck. Fedorian gritted his teeth against it, breathing in deeply through his nostrils. "I will kill him."

"And I will kill you," Haldir's voice was shockingly steady but the sword tip even more so as he glanced at Aragorn, white-faced, sprawled against the trunk.

Fedorian twisted still crouched, the saber biting so hard into his throat a trickle of blood ran down into his collar. He looked almost amused as though he wished Haldir would follow through with his threat. "Will you really?"

"Lay the knife down and step away from him."

Fedorian's lip curled above his teeth. "You had decided this from the very beginning. You did not need the woman's oath to give you an excuse to kill me."

"You mistake me," Haldir refuted him quietly without relaxing his grip an inch. "You have lived in darkness and bloodlust so long you cannot fathom the thoughts of others. Thoughts that are very different from yours. Lay the knife down. I will not ask you again."

"You used to think like me," Fedorian's eyes glittered. He did not obey. "When the bloodlust becomes too much…It will happen again. The darkness in your heart will grow as it once did…It only takes once…"

"Don't listen to him, Haldir!" Aragorn ground out, clutching his leg as he tried to drag himself out from under the elf's murderous knife. "He's—"

"Shut up, Estel." snarled Haldir. The last thing he wanted was Fedorian's attention drawn back to the human. He wanted Fedorian to forget Aragorn altogether. He couldn't do that if the ranger kept on talking. His grip tightened on his saber hilt, his gaze never wavering from the other elf. "You cannot run, Fedorian."

"I have no need of running. Not anymore." Fedorian's eyes flickered, noting the unmistakable challenge in the threat of the saber and the long stare. His face hardened like molten steel plunged in cold water. Without warning, he hurtled at the elf captain.

Haldir was ready.

For the briefest of instances, memory flashed through his mind's eye. Sparring matches with his captain —and there had been many while he was still young and a warden-in-training—had seldom left him unmarked even then. Only this time, it was no sparring match, no friendly competition. This battle would let blood before it was over and leave one or both of them on the grass.

His saber glittered as it swung up to parry his former captain's strike, knocking away the knife as it slashed for his chest. Fedorian employed centuries-honed skills and a deftness of eye and hand that had made him one of the fiercest Galadhrim fighters in Lothlórien. But Haldir was his match with the saber; and the length of the long sword outstripped his deadly blades. Still, he kept Haldir busy dodging sharp inward slashes and retreating to retain the reach of his weapon.

He tried to keep the dark elf on the tip of his blade, never allowing him close enough to use his knives but Fedorian had long ago learned to compensate for short reach. With a powerful sweeping blow, he struck the saber's lunging slash aside and spun inward, the knife tucked up close to his chest. On the cusp of his spin, he lashed out in a half-circle. Haldir pulled swiftly backward, feeling the blade swish the air within millimeters of his face. He touched the thin cut on his cheekbone as he stumbled back and glanced at his crimson-tinged fingertips.

"First blood is mine, Haldir," crowed Fedorian, dancing out of reach of a retaliatory blow.

Haldir did not reply except to wipe the cut on his cheek with his sleeve, his grip firming around the saber's leather guard as he circled towards his antagonist, keeping one eye on Estel who was still slumped against the tree bole; the man had awkwardly wrapped a rag around his bleeding thigh. Fedorian's stab hadn't hit an artery but the ranger was already more white than was good.

Fedorian followed his circling movement, flicking his wrist and letting another concealed blade as long as his forearm drop into his palm. Electricity crackled in the air between them, their long golden hair ruffling in a bitter wind. This time, Haldir closed first, leaping at the other elf with his saber lashing out as fluid as a whip.

Aragorn watched with wide horrified eyes. He had never seen anything like it. To his knowledge, not since the days of Fëanor and the terrible Kinslaying had Elf fought Elf. It was terrible but beautiful in a very strange, unearthly way: their sheer economy of movement, the rippling grace and unbelievable lethalness as they slashed, parried, reposted and weaved together—a fatal dance of elven steel and holistic skill.

Slash for stab, prick for cut, gash for scratch, blood soon spattered the grass and strips of cloth hung in sheds as they moved with eye-blurring speed, so fast Aragorn had trouble distinguishing who was who at times and could only watch the golden blur as the two fighters battled. They matched each other well with neither seeming able to gain the upper hand. For all his emaciated appearance, Fedorian held his own though the arrow wound in his shoulder had reopened and begun to bleed again. Haldir too was losing breath, his still unhealed rib causing more problems than was useful in a battle where the cost was his life.

Fedorian caught the saber tip on one knife edge, the other sweeping low and striking near the hilt on the other side. Metal shrieked in protest and sparks flew into the night air from the force of the blow, winking out slowly. Both elves winced at the sound but neither loosened their grip on their weapon. With a ringing screech, Fedorian's black knives began to slide down the length of Haldir's saber and caught on the hilt and raised spur that served as a crossguard, threatening to wrench the sword from his grasp or irreparably damage his fingers. Haldir stepped swiftly backward, spinning his saber to dislodge the knives.

Fedorian's blades crossed swiftly to catch the next overhead strike that would have cleaved him in half. "I thought you did not wish to see me killed, Haldir. Now where is your famed compassion?" he panted almost gleefully.

"You forfeited the right to my compassion the instant you tried to kill Estel," Haldir growled, disengaging his blade with a movement so sharp it forced Fedorian back three full paces. He pressed his advantage while he could, forcing the dark elf back and back, further away from Aragorn.

Pinning him back against a pine's spiky boughs, he cut Fedorian's wrist, forcing him to drop one of his knives and his next swipe opened a shallow gash across his chest making the other elf flinch.

"Looks like second blood belongs to me," Haldir said grimly.

Fedorian rolled with his right shoulder and the branch his weight had held back, snapped forward, catching Haldir across the face. Temporarily blinded, Haldir stumbled, trying to swipe the stinging needles out of his face as Fedorian scooped up his weapon.

Haldir saw the blade coming through a greenish haze but couldn't bring his saber up in time. Automatically, his free hand lashed out and caught the sharp edge of the blade to protect his vulnerable throat. Ignoring the icy serration as it bit ever deeper into his palm, he swung his saber awkwardly sideways and struck Fedorian in the shoulder with the heavy hilt. A hot, thin stream of blood snaked down the marchwarden's wrist as the knife slipped and raked down the fleshy part of his forearm, opening up his sleeve from wrist to elbow and leaving a deepening gash in its wake.

A crimson blush spread alarmingly quickly over his sleeve as Haldir flexed his pained hand, forcing it to close around his saber hilt again.

Pine needles scattered underfoot as they fought for purchase on the smooth, frozen ground. Ducking Haldir's next swing, Fedorian stepped in close, too close for the saber to reach. Haldir knew he was dead. But Fedorian instead of sinking his knives straight into his opponent's undefended chest flipped them until he held them by the tips and lashed out twice.

One pommel sank into Haldir's midsection, winding him and the second cracked into his chin. The marchwarden landed hard on his injured side. Gasping for breath and nursing his ribs, he rolled over and got his knees under him as Fedorian kicked his saber out of reach. Realization struck him in that moment. He looked up into his mentor's wild eyes and understood. Fedorian was going to draw this out for as long as he could.

He lunged straight from the ground and barreled into his attacker's shins, leading with his shoulder. The unexpected maneuver caught Fedorian by surprise and he lost his hold on one of his knives as both he and Haldir crashed into the ground. Haldir had the advantage, pinning the other elf down with his legs. He applied more weight to the pressure point of Fedorian's thin wrist until his adversary released his other knife with a cry of frustration. But his other hand wrenched out of Haldir's grip and collided smartly with the side of Haldir's head, cuffing his ear so hard it rang and a buzzing noise filled his head. The distraction was enough.

With a movement sinuous enough to shame a snake, Fedorian wriggled out from under him and stretched out a hand for one of his dropped weapons but recoiled with a yowl as his other blade pierced the back of his hand right through. Abandoning his weapons Fedorian leapt lightly to his feet, his wounded hand against his lips. Pulling another blade with a serrated edge from his boot, he spun unexpectedly and at the very edge of the circular movement threw it.

With split-second reflexes, Haldir caught it on the spin and hurled it right back, forcing Fedorian to dodge sharply aside to avoid his own weapon as Haldir lunged for his saber lying on the ground some ten feet away.

Fedorian was closer. He seized the saber and now Haldir had to leap aside to avoid his own sword cleaving him in half. Casting about for anything to defend himself, his eyes alighted on Fedorian's abandoned knives. The dark elf saw where he was going. He lunged. But his hand was unaccustomed to the heavy weight of the saber and his stroke missed, going wide. Haldir's fingers closed desperately around the black-handled knives.

He smacked the seeking saber blade away and reversed the grip of one of the knives. The hilt slammed into Fedorian's temple, knocking the stunned elf to the ground. With a kick, Haldir sent his saber into the air and caught it deftly by the hilt with his uninjured hand, dropping the other knife in the grass. Fedorian still lay where Haldir had flung him only slowly rising from his prone position. Haldir didn't strike him but circled warily.

Sharp, panting breaths fogged the sparkling air as each waited on the other. Leaning over his knees, Fedorian laughed, his breath coming faster.

"You are more like me than you know, Haldir. You…are just as ruthless, just as…hateful. But you hide it better. Though not always. I know you, Haldir. I know what you have suffered—and will suffer if you continue down this road. You still flinch when he touches you don't you?"

Again Haldir chose not to answer. He knew Fedorian was trying to goad him into making a foolish mistake but he was too old and clever to let personal taunts break his concentration. His ribs were really beginning to sting now. Another cut stung above his eyebrow and leaked blood into his eyes. Haldir blinked rapidly to clear his reddening vision, glancing at the slash across his arm. No tendons had been severed that he could feel and the blood was already slowing as his body reacted to the increased adrenaline and need for strength. But Fedorian's voice wormed into his head.

"You are weak, Haldir. You think you have put this behind you, you haven't. I see it in your eyes. You still fear what they think of you," Fedorian hissed, jerking his head in Aragorn's direction even as his fingers crept towards the knife hilt pointed toward him on the grass. "Murderer and recreant, you hide your sins behind your vaunted pride and well-cultivated self-righteousness. You are one to speak so to me of wrong and bloodlust. For what were the men of Gondor? The boy, Tergon? What were they except unarmed and defenseless when you slaughtered them in their sleep?"

A prickle of anger ruffled Haldir's otherwise smooth composure. He curled his hand into a fist, blood dripping slowly between his fingers. He was letting Fedorian's words get to him without realizing it. But, of course, like the skilled marksman he was, Fedorian knew just how to throw his darts so they would hit the right target, draw the most blood.

Fedorian's hand closed around the hilt as he bounded to his feet. The whistling saber bypassed him by a hairsbreadth as he grabbed Haldir's sword wrist and twisted his arm sharply behind his back. He applied pressure, almost wrenching Haldir's shoulder out of its socket. Caught off balance by the pain, Haldir dropped forward and down at the same time Fedorian flicked his left hand up, the knife gripped in his fist. There was no way he could free himself in time.

Haldir felt slick, piercing coldness as the knife slipped between two of his ribs, nicked a third and twisted inward, seeking his spine. Haldir torqued his torso desperately, crying out as the knife dug in deeper but missed the vital aim of his lungs.

Pain, bright and intense, washed over his humming consciousness and the cords in his neck stood out, red spots dimming his vision. He barely noticed Fedorian's slackened grip on his wrist. A long slow smile flitted across Fedorian's face as he tugged maliciously upward. Haldir didn't have any breath left to scream as his broken rib grated against another which snapped ominously. Bone was no match against steel.

Desperate, half-paralyzed with agony, Haldir did the only thing he could think of. Instead of pulling away as Fedorian expected, he leaned forward, forcing the knife even deeper into his side, and lashed backward like a releasing bow, butting the other elf hard in the forehead with the back of his head. The risky move worked. It thrust Fedorian back a pace and made him lose his grip on the knife. Haldir barely managed to stagger to his feet and touched the wooden hilt growing out of his side. He didn't dare remove it, knowing the imminent blood loss could very well send him over the brink into unconsciousness. Every breath was painful and he could feel the length of steel quiver inside him. The moment he spent recovering was a moment too long.

Fedorian's second knife slammed into his mouth and he tasted blood. But a jolt of panic washed all thought of his bitten cheek away as a tremor ran through the knife in his side. Fedorian's long fingers had closed around the wooden hilt. Haldir looked up at him. There was no pity in the dead gaze. He was going to finish this. One way or the other.


	21. Of Blades and Blooded Honor

Haldir felt his heart still as Fedorian's grip on the knife in his side tightened. The knife ripped brutally free, not out through the original wound but sideways, drenching Haldir's tunic in instant scarlet. The coppery tang of blood filled the air. The stench made Haldir dizzy and nauseous even as he dimly realized it was his own. Blackness not from the night around them threatened the periphery of his vision and he shook his head rapidly to clear it.

Fedorian didn't give him time to recover. Haldir barely brought his saber up in time to block another scything sweep aimed at his throat. The movement pulled the torn muscle in his side. The resultant pain doubled him up and Haldir fell forward onto his knees and uninjured forearm. A ruthless kick tumbled him onto his back as his injuries screamed helpless panic at him. He squinted through blurred, double vision trying to determine which of the two blade-wielding elves the real one was.

Circling around him, Fedorian dropped down onto his heels next to his former friend's head. "Do you feel it, Haldir? The cold creeps up on you quite fast or so I've been told. There will be no numbness before death. It is painful to the end. But I can make it quick." A lethal iciness scraped up along the wounded elf's throat, pressing ever-so-lightly against his throbbing jugular and Haldir closed his eyes as the grating voice continued to hiss its deadly promises.

"I have already taken Arenath to where he can no longer hurt. I will save you from your nightmares. And give you the last honor of dying like a soldier. As you would have given me."

Haldir's head rolled to one side, away from the knife and his glazed eyes caught Aragorn's wide, terrified ones. He had never seen the ranger so frightened, so helpless. He was clutching his leg and staring at Haldir with blank shock in his eyes. He had never wanted to disappoint Aragorn. Never wanted to hurt him as much as he had. He would have been safer had they never met…would have been better… His disorganized thoughts tangled and petered out into silence. He couldn't fight anymore.

Someone breathed his name and he opened his eyes. Aragorn. Estel. But the human was not speaking to him. Slowly words filtered through the pain-haze of his senses.

"—not Haldir. Please. Take me. You want me. Take me. Kill me instead."

It wasn't fear he heard in the man's strangled voice. It was pleading. Aragorn was pleading. Gone was the defiance, the great courage, the pride. If his friend's life was the high stake, Aragorn would not play the game.

Startling, cold clarity returned with a prick that even pain, blood loss and near-unconsciousness could not erase. Why was he lying here? Was he so willing to give up what he'd worked so hard to fix? If he fell, if he stopped, Fedorian would win. He would win and it would not only mean the end of his life, and Estel's but of more men for he knew Fedorian would not stop. He would not stop.

I will not stop.

"Do you hear that, Haldir?" Fedorian sneered, throwing an evil glance at the ranger. "The pathetic human pleads for your life. How shall I answer him since he brought this upon you?"

A blooming energy burst in Haldir's chest as a flicker of starlight glanced off the steel Fedorian was leveling at his throat, preparing to thrust it down for a quick, clean kill.

"No!" Aragorn screamed, struggling wildly against the bonds around his wrists. His leg, unhappy with this startling movement, burst with an agony that left him gasping and reeling against the trunk. He could only watch helplessly as the knife came down.

Haldir's hand shot up and grasped the other elf's wrist in a vice-like grip. Fedorian leaned down, using the weight and strength of his arm to slowly force the knife downwards. Haldir's head swam, his enemy's face kept blurring in and out of focus as darkness gathered at the edges of his vision. He was losing consciousness fast. If he had to finish the fight, it would have to be soon.

"I told you, Haldir…" The knife dropped an inch lower. "I do not tolerate… betrayal."

Another inch. It nicked Haldir's throat; a thin stream of blood ran down his neck and disappeared into his hair. Haldir's eyes flashed like storm clouds. With a supreme effort, he twisted the wrist in his grasp viciously at the same time bringing his fist up and landing a bare-knuckled punch to Fedorian's jaw. The second knocked the stunned elf off him. Holding his gaping side gingerly, Haldir lurched upright. His fingers, clumsy and disconcertingly numb, fumbled with one of the dark Galadhel's dropped knives. He didn't see Aragorn close his eyes in silent relief. In the thick darkness, the ranger couldn't see the large, wet patches steadily spreading over his friend's tunic.

Fedorian was already back on his feet but he was not looking at Haldir anymore. Instead he was staring off into the trees to the right of their glade.

Wary of an attempted diversion and his own wavering concentration, Haldir did not take his eyes of his former commander but the strange way he was starting to frown and the unconscious tremble running through his limbs made him blink and glance in the direction the other elf's eyes indicated.

Shadowy forms were moving off in the woods a hundred or so yards away. Even from this distance, Haldir blearily recognized the glint of a javelin and caught Carlóme's dark hair whirling over her shoulders. Somehow they had extricated themselves from the tunnel's remains and were racing towards the sound of clashing steel, having caught sight of their murderous quarry.

"I will not be taken by them," Fedorian murmured feverishly almost to himself. His desperate eyes locked onto Haldir's. "I will not surrender, Haldir. I will not let them take me again!"

He dove suddenly, teeth bared. His hand latched onto Haldir's wrist which held the knife and tugged sharply. Stunned by the unexpected movement, Haldir felt the brief resistance of flesh meeting steel and instinctively tried to pull back but the damage was already done.

Aragorn missed it as Carlóme's band broke through the trees on the other side of the glade. The dark woman paused momentarily, before catching sight of the ranger. She crouched beside him and started to saw at his bonds while he desperately craned his neck over her shoulder for a glimpse of the two still-grappling elves. The combatants had fallen against a pine with Haldir pinned between the trunk and Fedorian. The ranger felt his heart stop as he watched Haldir's face drain of any remaining color, his expression frighteningly slack and frozen.

"No…"

Then he noticed the growing pool of crimson seeping through Fedorian's shirt as the older soldier pulled back enough for Aragorn to glimpse the lame of the long knife buried deep in his chest. The former captain of the Galadhrim touched the bloodstained steel and sank heavily to his knees, his legs buckling as though cut out from under him. He slumped over onto his back.

Haldir let the blade drop with him, his eyes wide and horrified. Crimson blossomed like an ugly flower over his own tunic and rolled sluggishly from the ends of his fingers but he hardly seemed to notice either of these as he stared down at the dying elf.

"Fedorian."

Pain swept his feet out from under him for a second time and he collapsed at Fedorian's side. The knife had gone straight into his heart and he was losing blood fast. Fedorian did not do anything to prevent the flow. His eyelids flickered as a rill of scarlet trickled from a cut on his cheek.

Haldir wiped it away with his knuckles. Dimly he could sense the others standing around them, feel Carlóme's penetrating gaze and Aragorn's but he had no thought for them now. "I did not want this."

Fedorian drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "You have…helped me…more than y—you know, tithenion. Fight your own battles from now on, soldier," his breath sounds had sunk even lower and shallower, rattling deep in his chest. "I am finished with mine."

His breath hitched and then stopped altogether. No soft cloud frosted the air between his lips. He went silent and entirely limp on the icy ground. The tortured spirit left his eyes and the hateful glitter in them finally dulled though they remained half-open, staring up through the high branches towards the stars.

Haldir reached numbly forward and closed Fedorian's eyes. Averting his own, he removed the knife, folding already cooling hands around the hilt. Getting to his feet was more difficult than he thought it would be and he didn't stay up long. His head whirled as though he'd stood up too fast and he stumbled back from Fedorian's body, an immovable trunk sparing him from falling. As the adrenaline rush faded, pain and exhaustion were freed to pounce. He glanced down at his tunic which was now more crimson than grey. He frowned. Surely that wasn't right? Brown flickers danced round the edges of his vision.

Aragorn realized what was about to happen a split second before it did and he barely heaved his weight up on his screaming leg in time to catch his friend's shoulders as he collapsed. But the added weight was too much for his injured leg and they both tumbled to the ground. The ranger heaved himself up on his knees and rolled his friend onto his back. Shaking fingers frantically swept aside the elf's limp, sweat and blood-matted hair.

"He's hurt," he yelled to Carlóme and the others who were still standing about the glade, frozen with shock. Aragorn leaned anxiously over his friend. Now that he was this close and could see the full extent of the damage Fedorian's knives had wrought, he felt sick. "Haldir?"

The elf captain stirred at the sound of his name and frowned up at him through hazy eyes. "I think I used to be taller than you."

Aragorn was worried by the confusion in the elf's gaze and squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. "You fell, mellon nin. Just lie quiet for now. We'll get you help."

The elf murmured something incomprehensible as his eyelids slipped lower; a pale sheen lay on his hair. Aragorn fingered the bright gold and glanced up towards the sky. He hadn't realized it was morning.

Dawn's light brightened around them from midnight blue to pearly opalescent. Soft pale blue shot through early clouds and trickled into the middle of the glade, illuminating the wan faces of the two friends.

"I'm sorry, Estel," Haldir gasped, catching the fingers resting on his shoulder. "I know I told you I would take you home…"

"Don't talk like that, Haldir, you'll be fine… you—" He raised his eyes helplessly to Saeryn who had knelt beside him. Her face was grim.

"It is better this way…I couldn't let him die…like that…" The elf shook his head and cleared his throat roughly. "I thought if you knew what I had done… You would turn from me. And I could not blame you. But I could not have borne it either."

The ranger firmly cut across his friend's rambling. "I have already told you, you are my friend. Nothing will change that."

"And you mine. I knew… I knew somehow what he would do. I knew it then. And I did nothing. I have been a warrior all my life… But never a murderer… until…" he whispered, softer now.

Cold sweat slicked Aragorn's palms as he touched the elf's even colder cheek. His friend was slipping away, his thoughts growing more and more incoherent as he struggled to keep conscious.

Haldir's head rolled against the man's shoulder, his cloudy, barely open eyes finding the still form lying a few feet away.

"I—I think he wanted it, Estel. He could have stopped… but he didn't. He—"

"Shh, don't talk about that now. In fact, you shouldn't be talking at all," Aragorn quieted him. His friend was trembling in his arms and his lips were turning a desperate blue, the first signs of shock. It was a miracle it had taken as long to set in as it had. "Those aren't scratches, my friend."

Aragorn tried to smile reassuringly but his lips felt paralyzed. Crimson soaked his sleeves and leaked between his fingers from the terrible wounds Fedorian had inflicted in Haldir's arm and side. It was like watching Arenath die all over again except this time it was Haldir...This time it was someone he could not lose. Not when Haldir had risked his life for him.

Half-delirious with pain, Haldir did not heed him. "He died how he wished. In battle…with hon—"

"Stop talking!"

Haldir did but not because of the ranger's words. His overbright eyes searched over the ranger's shoulder and locked onto Carlóme's who had appeared just behind them. His eyelids fluttered, his words slurring as darkness began to drag him down. "You are revenged. He is dead."

The elf captain's head lolled into the crook between Aragorn's collarbone and neck. Faint voices still trickled through his stumbling consciousness but they sounded far away and he could not answer.

"Is he dead?"

"No, no, he's breathing. We need to move him carefully."

A clamor broke out as the others crowded around. He could only separate a few words as he battled waves of pain and darkness. Heady pain and lingering pressure did not allow him to keep his eyelids open and pulled him inexorably downwards. Someone touched his side and he moaned.

"…so white."

"He fought that…"

"That's a lot of blood."

"Haldir. Haldir!" Aragorn's voice briefly thrust aside the haze. He sounded shrill and frightened though Haldir couldn't remember why he should be. The danger was over wasn't it? Why couldn't they let him sleep…Someone was urgently tapping his face. He barely felt it.

"Stay with me, mellon nin. Come on. I just need you to—"

But what Estel needed him to do he would never find out. Black specks swamped the last of his sight. The invisible, hard ground rocked beneath his body though he knew Aragorn held him fast. But even the desperate, tightening grip of his friend could not stay him and he sank, finally surrendering into oblivion's comforting embrace.

Light snow was falling, blue in the dim twilight. Frost slicked the stones like a lace web across the yard. Aragorn leaned against the wooden doorjamb, staring out into the night. The stone keep behind him was almost as cold as outside and less than welcome at the moment. Soft snowflakes whirled down and alighted on his shoulders, melting and seeping into his clothes but he didn't step out of the wind.

They came slowly with their burden. Carlóme led with a torch in her hand which flared and sizzled as snowflakes whirled into it. Then Zaren, Petrin and Brenn came next. They bore a stretcher between them. A long dark sheet of sacking dusted with white covered the face of the occupant, protecting it from the wet. Oddly, he felt nothing upon seeing it as though all of his energies these last few days had gone wholly into setting one foot in front of the other.

He should be down there helping them but Saeryn had already snapped at him more than once for not resting his leg and when Carlóme, finally sick of listening to Saeryn's scolding, added her own, the ranger relented. But he did not go inside nor did he sit down though his leg was screaming at him to do both by now. He had to stay. He had to watch even if he could not help.

A pale hand protruded from underneath the sacking. It swung lightly in the motion of its carriers, looking almost alive but for the fact that it was far too limp and rigid to be living. The long fingers were half-curled as though in supplication towards the healer who stood in the doorway, the healer that had no power to mend the wounds hidden under that shroud. Aragorn shivered.

He couldn't watch anymore. With limping, difficult steps, he turned his back on the snowy courtyard and painstakingly pushed himself along the corridor, holding onto the wall for support. The hallway had never seemed so long in his life. Scuffling noises behind him and a heavy thud told him the stretcher bearers had reached the hall. He started to tremble more violently. A light flickered at the far end, drawing him closer and closer with the promise of life and warmth.

The soft-lit room was small, containing only one bed and a rickety chair. He pushed the latter over to the glowing brazier in one corner and sat down, rubbing his hands and aching leg.

After the feeling started to tingle back into his fingers, he raised his head a few inches and peered over at the figure on the bed. It was more of a cot really; he rued the fact they hadn't been able to find anything better. He deserved more than this… A lump choked off in his throat and he had to swallow hard to force it down. Struggling to his feet, he crouched awkwardly by the bed and smoothed strands of long, golden hair off Haldir's face.

The marchwarden was very, very pale, as white as the gauze wrapped thickly around his abdomen and forearm, concealing the worst of his injuries from view. A yellowing bruise darkened his jaw and the small cuts above his eye and on his cheek were already closing. Aragorn placed a cool palm against his friend's forehead, easing slowly down to brush his cheek which was clammy and cold. But for the slight rise and fall of his chest, he perfectly matched the corpse on the stretcher.

An unobtrusive footstep behind him did not startle him and he didn't take his eyes from his friend's motionless form as Brenn sidled into the room. He was almost in here as much as Aragorn was, his eyes automatically lighting on the figure in the bed.

Aragorn looked up at last when the boy crouched beside him. "There's no change."

"Can—can I just sit with him…for a while?" the boy requested nervously as though he feared the older man would send him away. Aragorn only smiled sadly and nodded.

They had done all they could. It was up to Haldir now. But he wandered far from them and could not know the concern of those keeping vigil at his bedside.

The light nearly blinded him. He stood at ease, blinking in bright sunshine. It was so silent he started when he discovered he was not alone. Early summer leaves rippled across the straight-backed forms of the arrayed company in front of him; a brilliant light haloed them and fell about their feet. No ghastly specters these covered in blood-soaked wounds. They stood in long ranks and files, rigid to attention, garmented in sparkling silver and black. Weapons, much in evidence, had been polished to a high sheen and leaned proudly against hips and shoulders.

And at their head, arms folded in the small of his back, golden hair unbound and spilling down his shoulders stood Fedorian. He turned to look on Haldir as the younger elf approached. The once-dark Galadhel bore no bloody wounds from their final encounter. His skin was smooth and whole. No rips or tears marred his raiment. He wore the deep blue tunic and gold epaulettes of an officer and his green eyes shone when he smiled. There no trace of bitterness or hatred left in his face, only pride as he surveyed the troops.

"Good turnout."

Haldir scanned the faces, a few—those in front—he recognized. Cálivien, captain of the north fences before Fedorian, Tirien of Mirkwood, Telas counselor to Thranduil—names and faces flashed before him and were gone. Arenath.

Those further back he did not know, elves fallen before his time. "What are they all doing here?" he asked, caught between awe and heartbreak. They were faces he still missed.

"They have come to see me home. All of them."

Then he saw them. Standing to one side of the column farthest right, Geilrín and Silivren, Fedorian's wife and daughter, stood in their healer's white. They smiled brightly when his eyes fell on them. Arenath broke rank long enough to wrap an arm around Silivren's waist and smile. He looked happier than Haldir had ever seen him.

They were all there: his teachers, his friends, soldiers and comrades he had known during the war…his father. He took an impulsive step forward but Fedorian held out a hand to halt him.

"Not yet, Haldir," his voice was at once adamant and understanding. "You have a captaincy of your own to look out for. They'll need to stretch their swords a bit more before they join the ranks here."

Haldir's chest ached with longing and against his friend's words he took another step forward. "Captain, my life—"

"—is not over," Fedorian finished firmly, gripping his shoulders firmly to stop him from going any further. "And it is perilous for one not dead to join our ranks. We will wait for you, Haldir, when your time comes. We will all be there to welcome you home. But not yet. You have too much yet to do." He released him as a scout in bright green marched up to his officer and threw an elegant salute.

"All present and accounted for, sir."

"Good." With one last squeeze and smile, Fedorian took his place at the head of the line. "All right, you brass-necked, bold bravura! About face! And…march!"

Haldir watched them, an ache he didn't want to look too closely at throbbing deep in his chest as they strode in perfect unison into the green forest, their steps silent and perfectly even. With them, went the light and as the last of their singing voices faded in an echo of an old marching song, he was left alone in the dark.

He couldn't see the ground though he could feel it, quite solid under the soles of his boots. It echoed strangely as though made of marble. Suddenly something unmoving connected with his waist and he lurched over it, automatically splaying his hands on the cold, hard surface to keep his balance. Then he realized what it was and pulled back sharply.

A shrouded figure lay on a slab of stone, barely visible in the faint grey light that infused this strange limbo-world. A gauzy cloud of some material covered an undeniably human-shaped form; he could see the contours of high cheekbones and a glint of gold hair beneath the translucent fabric. On impulse, he snagged the edge of it and ripped it back.

He stared down into his own face, white and still. The pall fluttered from his hands.

Somewhere in the dark a guttural voice asked. "How much are we going to get for it?"

A drab, olive blanket had been pulled up around his chest and his hand rested on top of it. His limbs felt unimaginably heavy and stiff as though he hadn't moved in a long time. Muddled, bleary thoughts and half-recalled pictures chased through his memory and Haldir sucked in a sharp breath, fearing to find himself on the cold slab.

A wooden frame met his searching fingertips and he paused, not sure what to make of this development as it matched neither his last recollections nor his nightmare. The chamber was better lighted than the darkness he had expected: the soft pallid light seared across his face. His uninjured forearm crept up and shielded his eyes so he could look around the room.

Grey walls presented for his hazy inspection. Haldir frowned. He didn't remember them. A hard, cold knot settled somewhere in his stomach region as he gingerly levered himself up on one elbow, ignoring the prickle of dulled pain at the back of his mind. He froze as he saw them. Three of the walls of his room were blank stone but the fourth, easily the most terrifying had eight, straight posts of iron forming an impassable barrier to the outside world. Bars. His breath started coming faster.

Leaning against the wall for support, he pulled his body upright. It took him two or three tries as his legs didn't seem to want to cooperate. He limped over to the bars. This couldn't be happening…it was a bad dream…His fingers touched the iron coldness and his stomach plummeted like a dead weight. It was real. He gripped the bars desperately with both hands and heaved.

They clanked open.

The movement so startled him he nearly lost his balance as the wide grille swung outward.

He pushed again. The door swung open wider with only a slight creak. It finally dawned on his numbed mind: he wasn't locked in. He plunged through the thin opening, fearing someone would come along and realize their mistake. But he didn't get far. The trembling weakness in his legs abruptly stole any thought of further flight right out of him and he collapsed at the top of a downward leading staircase, breathing heavily. Dizziness assailed him until he felt nauseous. He probably shouldn't have moved so soon. He didn't realize he was sitting against the wall until someone called his name.

"Haldir," Aragorn said his name again, his face creased with concern as he hurried as quickly as he could down the corridor, flanked by Brenn and Petrin, the young prison guard. The ranger was limping on his left leg and it took a few seconds before Haldir remembered why.

The man knelt painfully next to him and grasped his shoulder, unbelievable relief evident in the wide grin nearly splitting his face in two even as he mentally berated himself. The one time he decided to let Saeryn drag him away from his friend's side to get the dressings on his wound changed, he had to wake up. "You're awake."

"They're going to hang me."

"What?" the ranger frowned then noticed the elf's wide gaze focused on the prison cells opposite them. He could tell Haldir wasn't quite all the way there. He looked very confused and he wasn't making any sense. Realization hit him like a bucketful of icewater.

"Oh, no. No. No, mellon nin. Not at all. We just didn't want anybody to disturb you that's the only reason we closed the door."

The elf's gaze found his wrapped forearm which had just sought to remind him of its presence with a fierce twinge. Memory was trickling back slowly. The pealing bells… a collapsing tunnel… the fight in the glade… "Ah."

"Are you in pain?" Aragorn questioned, worried the elf's movements might have pulled at his injuries.

"Is he all right?" Petrin inquired anxiously. Brenn was hanging back but craned his neck over the guard's shoulder to see.

"Give us a little space please," Aragorn motioned them back without taking his eyes off his friend. "Haldir?"

Haldir regarded the thick bandages wrapped around his midsection and forearm. They didn't hurt exactly although if he moved too suddenly he could feel the pull of stitches and supposed Aragorn must have drugged him to dull his senses. More than a little embarrassed by his reaction, he muttered at the floor rather than raise his head.

"No… I—I don't feel anything. Thank you."

He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling too tired to even pick himself off the floor just yet. He settled for glancing down the long corridor. His last memory didn't match up with being in the prison. "How did I get here?"

Aragorn stretched his leg out in front of him with a soft grimace. He was still watching the elf with deep concern. "Carlóme and the others showed up just in time with Varnic's men who managed to dig them out of the tunnel. After…after you passed out, we made up a stretcher and carried you back here. We were afraid to move you any farther so we put you up here once we slowed the bleeding enough. I'm sorry. I didn't want you to wake up alone."

"It's all right. I'm just… It makes better sense now. I'm…I'm still a little tired."

"That's not surprising," the man said. Something in his tone caught Haldir's curiosity and he glanced at him until he explained. "Well, it's going to take some time to recover your strength. You've been lying there nearly a week."

"What?"

Aragorn's face was very grave and no hint of jest flickered in his eyes. "We were really worried for you for quite a while. It was only last night that I was sure you'd pull through. I've had Brenn and Petrin running back and forth to Merdon to fetch supplies. They've both proved extremely helpful," the ranger allowed and Petrin and Brenn beamed. "Until now. I told you I wanted someone to be with him at all times in case he woke up."

Both Brenn and Petrin looked appalled with themselves. Brenn protested. "But we only left for a minute. Car was getting the…" he trailed off with a sideways glance at the elven warrior watching him closely. "the… you know ready." He gave Aragorn a significant look. "She wanted us to open the door."

"All right. Then I forgive you," the man said. "Why don't you two see what you can scrounge up for food and drink around here. Some of the soup from last night will do and tea. You," he turned back to his friend. "need to eat and rest."

"What a week's worth wasn't enough?" the elf teased but when the man frowned at him he relented. He still felt too drained to start a debate anyway so he opted instead for settling his curiosity. "What is the woman 'getting ready?' "

Aragorn froze in the act of getting heavily to his feet. "I'll tell you later. You don't need to worry about it right now."

"Well, that's cryptic."

"You must be wearing off on me," the man said dryly. He stretched out a hand to the elf when Haldir showed no signs of rising. "Can you get up all right? Do you need—?"

"I'm fine." Haldir ignored the proffered hand and used the very obliging wall to get to his feet.

Aragorn grasped his shoulder when he swayed. Ignoring the elf's pride, the man wrapped an arm firmly around his waist, easy of his wound, and helped him back into his cell-room.

In his haste to escape, he hadn't noticed the high window streaming bright sunlight into the chamber. It looked as comfortable as a cell could possibly be made. His and Aragorn's packs sat side by side against one wall and a hard-backed chair had been dragged into one corner near a lit brazier, the flames dull in the daylight.

"Can you leave the door open please?" he requested, a little ashamed of how weak that made him sound.

Aragorn only nodded and sat down on the chair.

Wrapped in the drab blanket, Haldir rested his shoulders against the wall above the cot and closed his eyes. He didn't say anything.

"You look horrible you know," Aragorn offered.

"Thank you," the elf felt the beginnings of a smile twitch the corner of his lips but he didn't open his eyes.

"Do you want to sleep? I can leave if you want…" The man started to stand but Haldir's eyes opened.

"No." That was all but Aragorn understood. Instead of settling back in the chair though, he glanced at the elf as though for permission and when Haldir scooted over, he joined him with his back braced against the wall and his bad leg dangling over the edge of the mattress. The elf captain glanced at it then quickly away again as Brenn came bustling through the door with a tray laden with two bowls covered in cloths; he whipped them off the steaming soup with a flourish.

"It's the best I could come up with," he said, setting it on the chair.

"That's fine, Brenn, thanks," Aragorn told him with a smile.

The elf's eyes scanned the backs of the chairs, the foot of the cot and the cloaks piled on the floor. Aragorn glanced at him curiously as he got up and went over to their packs. "What are you looking for?"

"Where is my tunic?"

"What do you want that ratty thing for?" Brenn asked, pouring tea into two cups.

Aragorn was a little more tactful. "One of mine won't serve?"

"You still need to grow a few more inches, little one, before I can wear your clothes," the tall elf said, poking through their supplies while the ranger spluttered with outrage.

"I am grown! I cannot believe you just said that," the man said, the wide grin belaying his disgruntled tone.

Haldir didn't laugh, the contents of his pack now thoroughly scattered over the room. "Where is it?"

The ranger shared a sidelong look with Brenn before answering. "It—it was ruined, Haldir. You don't want it surely? You shouldn't be up anyway…"

"Did you burn it?" The elf captain's eyes snapped up to the ranger's, searching.

"No." Aragorn had at least made sure of that.

"Should have seen the washerwoman when he told her to save it," Brenn added, wrinkling his nose in imitation of the hooklike beak of the matron who took care of the guards', prisoners'—and the occasional wounded elf's—clothing. "'Lan' sakes! That thing'll bring in all kinds of disease! But if you want it, your deaths on your own head be it!'"

Haldir still didn't smile, his eyes locked on Aragorn's. "Where is it?"

The young man sighed and brushed the elf aside so he could get to their satchels. After a few uncertain moments of rummaging around in his, he took out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. He passed it to the elf who unwrapped it and shook out his long, grey tunic.

The garment was torn, filthy and wrinkled despite someone's thoughtful but ineffective attempt to get some of the stains out. It was stiff all along one side with dried blood. Haldir let the blanket fall from his shoulders and gingerly shrugged it on, waiting for his injuries to protest.

Aragorn was watching him with something like concern as though the sight of the bloodstained fabric might evoke some fresh horror in him but Haldir didn't care to notice his discomfort. He had seen his own blood before and liked his uniform, no matter its condition. He felt less than himself without it.

"My black undertunic?" He had to ask though he suspected.

"That one," Aragorn said, still watching the elf's face. "Couldn't be salvaged."

"They had to cut it off you," Brenn said, his eyes like saucers as he dragged his eyes away from the crimson stain up to the elf's face. "I've never seen that much blood in my whole life."

Wincing, Haldir nodded. He had expected as much. "Ah, well. I think I have a spare somewhere." He glanced at Brenn then pointedly at Aragorn.

The ranger took the hint and with a smile, wrapped an arm around the inquisitive boy. "Hey, Brenn, why don't you go on downstairs see what Carlóme needs help with all right? Let him rest."

The boy nodded reluctantly and with one last look at his hero, let himself be escorted out. Aragorn watched him go with a fond smile. "He was very worried about you."

Haldir said nothing, partially leaning against the wall, lost in thought.

Aragorn's semi-anxious smile appeared again as he pretended to not look his friend over while doing so. "You really shouldn't be up you know."

"I know." He was staring at his right hand, flexing the fingers as though he'd forgotten it belonged to him. Someone had mercifully washed the blood off his hands and even from underneath his fingernails. He didn't want to think what a sight he must have looked when Aragorn had carried in his limp body. An odd shiver passed across his face as his last moments of awareness caught up with him.

"You slept a long time," Aragorn said to cover the silence, his eyes fixed on the floor.

"And how much did you rest?" Haldir asked with a glint in his eye that suggested he knew far too well the answer.

Condemning himself Aragorn fumbled to hide a yawn. "I slept enough."

With great difficulty Haldir refrained from rolling his eyes. Any excess movement of late made him nauseous. The guilt-induced sickness, held back by the dam of unconsciousness for so long, washed over him again as his thoughts returned to the glade, Aragorn's white face with blood spilling between his fingers, Fedorian breathing his last. Haldir had no false illusions about himself. He knew what he had done had been necessary. Once more he played the role of executioner all too well.

The lack of a pithy remark about his nursemaid tendencies must have alerted Aragorn.

"Haldir? What's wrong?"

The elf shook his head in a familiar "it's nothing" motion, immediately regretting it as the world rocked and the floor decided to jerk under his feet.

"Are you feeling all right? Dizzy?" Aragorn immediately jumped on any sign of discomfort and gripped his arm to steady him as he wavered.

The elf captain didn't answer and kept his eyes closed until the room settled again. He opened them, realizing he'd fallen against the wall and Aragorn's worried face was scarce inches from his. Haldir smiled apologetically, pushed away from the wall and brushed off the man's helping hand, cursing himself for putting that dark anxiety back in his young friend's eyes.

"I'm fine."

"I don't know how you can be."

The elf stared at him, stunned by the frankness. Apparently the ranger knew or guessed all too well what was going on behind his friend's weak façade of indifference. Aragorn chewed briefly on his lip, looking as though he were struggling with something as Haldir dropped onto a corner of the mattress.

"You were thinking of him weren't you?"

"That obvious?" Haldir looked up at him as Aragorn took the place he had just vacated against the wall.

"Look, Haldir, the things he said—" Aragorn began. "They weren't—"

"He was right—to an extent," Haldir refuted him lightly as the ranger opened his mouth to argue. "I let darkness consume me for a very long time, Estel. It was a choice I made and it was a bad one. I never…I did not want it to go as far as it did and I have carried it around inside me for too long a time. In a way, I am indebted to Fedorian. He unearthed shadows I had buried deep within. Shadows I had…feared," he had not spoken of this before to anyone—not even to his brothers or Rameil, that secret deep within him that what had happened all those years ago could happen again if prodded enough, if disturbed enough. He had almost left Aragorn to his death the first time he had met him. The thought still haunted him a little—how much he would have missed if he had.

"It took confronting him…and a few other things—" the elf said for the first time looking up from the floor to glance at his human friend. "—for me to realize I have no need for fear."

The young man sat down next to him again and leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on his thighs, easy of his still-tender injury. He didn't quite know what to say. He would never dared ask or expect such a confession, if confession it could be called, from his close-mouthed friend. It was a moment before he could find his voice.

"I always knew it," he said softly. Haldir smiled.

The ranger touched his friend's shoulder carefully. "If you…if you want…I had Carlóme and the others…I had them bring him back from the glade. That's what she was getting ready. If you wanted to…say goodbye. Properly."

Haldir stared at his lap for a long time before he finally nodded. "He deserves that much from me at least." He would pay his last respects and see his friend down to the Sea where he would finally have peace at last. He rubbed his aching eyes and smiled ruefully with his chin in his hand as he examined his friend. "If I look horrible, you should look in the mirror, mellon nin. When did you last bathe?" He fingered a lock of the ranger's greasy hair.

Aragorn sputtered indignantly, secretly glad for the lightening mood. "I'll have you know, I washed in a freezing stream this morning so I'd be clean and smelling of rose petals just for you."

The elf made a noise of amused disbelief as the man got up and brought the now-cold tray of soup and tea over to the bed. He winced as his movement sent a spasm up his leg. Haldir took the tray from him gingerly as he rubbed it before catching the marchwarden's concerned gaze. He offered a smile.

"It doesn't hurt much."

"You're still limping."

"And you're not?"

Haldir decided to concede the point and took his bowl off the tray. He laughed hoarsely as he sipped at the broth. "Oh, I shudder to think of the lecture I'm going to get from your father: dragging you through seedy towns, off cliffs, into battles with mad elves…"

"He'll get over it. What?" Aragorn said when the elf's brow furrowed. "What is it?"

His tunic had slipped slightly off his shoulders. Haldir let his spoon fall and ran his fingers over his collarbone again, tracing his shoulder. "There was a scar here…It's…it's almost gone."

"Some scars fade over time," Aragorn shrugged, not sure why this held any particular significance.

Haldir nodded slowly. Aragorn could not know that the mark Tergon had made in his flesh had showed no signs of fading for more than two millennia. It had been a mark of his shame and hatred carried within him all these years. But it was fading, nothing more than the shadow of a white line anymore. A sudden, inexplicable peace flooded through his entire being such as he had not known in years. He was forgiven.

"I suppose so."

Another week passed before Saeryn deemed both the ranger and the elf well enough to travel—at a leisurely pace so as not to stress their injuries. Fedorian was laid to rest in a borrowed boat and sent down the River Isen towards the Sea with only Haldir and Aragorn in attendance. Before they knew it their bags were packed, bolstered by extra rations Carlóme and the others had bought. Even Fabor, the innkeeper of the Goat, had grudgingly parted with a bottle or two of his unaged blackthorn brandy in farewell. The Haradrim woman's band rode with them as far as the hedge-flanked gate that opened onto the north road.

"If you're waiting for a tearful farewell, you're not getting one," Carlóme said, slinging the postern gate open wide from the back of her horse. "If you're ever in Rhûn, look us up."

A few weeks ago, the rough, dismissive tone would have made him bristle but now Aragorn just shook his head with a smile. It was odd how some people just began to grow on you. It seemed strange and a little sad to be saying goodbye. He had become oddly fond of this band of miscreants in the short time they had ridden together.

Ignoring her leader's typical brusqueness, Saeryn clasped first Aragorn's hands and then Haldir's in both her own and squeezed them tightly. "Take care of yourself, warrior. And you too, Strider."

Zaren also shook hands with both of them, wishing them well and a safe journey. Aragorn smiled when he saw Brenn hesitatingly approach Haldir and speak to him. The elf captain, looking much refreshed after a peaceful night's sleep, smiled and rummaged in his saddlebag for a minute or two before pulling out the small, elvish knife. Brenn's pleased grin almost split his face as he unabashedly embraced the elf who looked surprised but gratified. He caught Aragorn's eye over the boy's shoulder and rolled his eyes as if to say "Humans. What can you do?" Aragorn shook his head. "Absolutely nothing."

As Brenn finally let go, Haldir noticed Narturi staring at him from near her own horse. He crooked a finger at her, shooting a sly look in Carlóme's direction. Nonplussed but looking excited, the youngest of Carlóme's band dropped her bag in the dust to meet him.

Narturi stared up at him with wide, doe eyes, as he tilted her chin up towards him and placed a very chaste kiss on her forehead. As he pulled away, her head shot up and daring lips caught the corner of his mouth. He grasped her wrists to hold her off, laughing loudly.

"Eldest here and I still get the prettiest kiss!"

Kari snatched Narturi's wrist and dragged her back towards her horse.

"Shame on you, Haldir, tempting an innocent young maid like that," Aragorn scolded his friend from horseback, a wide, uncontrollable grin stretching across his own face when Haldir winked rakishly at him.

He stroked Lintedal's velvet neck with a smile as the horse nudged his shoulder impatiently. "Are you ready then, hiril nin?"

Carlóme jerked her chin impatiently towards the road. Clearly, she wasn't one for long goodbyes. "Off you go then."

Zaren cleared his throat and gave her a pointed look.

"Thanks," she added curtly.

"And?" the scarred thief prompted.

Carlóme gave him a look that could have burned ice. "Good luck."For the briefest of instances, her dark eyes met the elf's. He gave her the slightest nod and could have sworn he received one in return. But then…

"Take care of your friend, Strider," she said, her dark eyes flickering over to the ranger. "If he gets in as much trouble as he's been in these last few weeks, he's going to need all the help he can get."

Haldir smirked at her as he nudged Lintedal through the gates. "How comforting it is that some things never change."

Aragorn could not quite conceal his smile as they rode up the curving road, the leaning ramshackle buildings of Merdon falling farther and farther behind. "You know, I think she might almost miss you."

"Don't."

"I'm serious! Did you see that last look she gave you?" Aragorn laughed helplessly and ducked as the elf swatted at him.

In the middle distance on their right reared the huge, cloudy smudges of the Misty Mountains, their peaks crowned with white clouds that promised more snow before the afternoon was yet far along.

Haldir shaded his far-seeing eyes with a hand. "Think you can put up with me until we reach Rivendell?"

"I suppose I will have to," Aragorn sighed, feigned reluctance softened by the teasing sparkle in his eyes.

The elf captain pulled a long face which made him start chuckling. "Well, I don't have to take this all afternoon, you ungrateful wretch."

"Oh no indeed?" The ranger grinned challengingly, already knowing what the elf was going to do and tightening his grip on the reins.

"Lintedal is far better company than you. And faster than that old nag you ride can match." The mischievous glint in those silver eyes was unmistakable now.

He barely had to touch Lintedal with his heels to send her flying down the road; Aragorn's deep laughter following him as the ranger spurred on his own steed. Dust flew from under their hooves as they galloped into the wind on towards Rivendell and home.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: On to Dwimmerlaik!


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